The next day Tony's supplies arrived.

He had spent all day drawing out diagrams and doing calculations, and he directed the men around the cave, telling them where to set things up, and what other gear he would need, his requests translated by Dr. Yinsen. The older man relayed his commands, but seemed distracted, glancing out of the door every chance he could, constantly pulling out a battered pocket watch to look at.

"This area needs to be well-lit." Tony said. "I want it at 12 o'clock to the door to avoid logjams. I need welding gear - acetylene or propane, helmets, a soldering set-up with goggles, and smelting cups. Two full sets-" He glanced at Yinsen, who had stopped talking, peering down the corridor the men were coming down. "Yinsen, you good man?"

Yinsen nodded absently. "Yes, yes, smelting cups."

"Ok good, 'cos I need this stuff exactly as I say. It's no good it you telling them something else because you're concentrating on your dinner."

The doctor grit his teeth momentarily, then went back to translating Tony's orders. "Two full sets of precision instruments..."

When the last of the equipment had been placed in the corner of the room and the terrorists had left, Tony finally bent over a missile and unscrewed the cap. Yinsen handed him a mug of coffee and he absently took it, carefully pulling the interior of the missile out to inspect.

He jumped violently when the door opened with a loud clatter and three men walked in, carrying a fourth body between them. They dropped the body on the camp bed then left without a word, locking the door behind them.

Yinsen hurried over to the camp bed, muttering to himself, and Tony slowly followed after him, almost throwing up when he caught sight of the state of the body on the bed.

There was no way to gauge age or gender through the slashes and bruises covering the body's soaked face and torso, but from the size Tony guessed a young woman or possibly a child.

Whoever they were, they would have been in absolute agony, but Tony didn't see how they could still be alive. Their left arm was pointing at an unnatural angle, and there were severe rope burns around both ankles. Their shorts and t-shirt were torn and covered in blood from hundreds of cuts and gashes all over their body. Their face was a pulped mess, nose pointing in the wrong direction, purple bruises spreading over pale skin and a chunk of hair missing where a large burn spread across their scalp, blood mixing with water to cause the rest of their dark hair to stick to their face.

"They're monsters." Tony said, watching Yinsen straighten the broken arm.

"He'll be fine." Yinsen said.

"Fine?" Tony repeated. "I'm no doctor, but generally when people look like... this, they aren't considered 'fine'."

"He will heal. Hand me that cloth."

"He will... what?"

Yinsen looked up. "Heal. Hand me that cloth."

Tony absently passed over a cloth that Yinsen dipped in a bowl of water and began wiping the worst of the blood off the young man's face. Tony jumped, as with a series of sickening snaps the bones in his arms moved into place. He watched, fascinated, as the cuts began to knit together, the bruises slowly faded from deep purple to a browny-green, dark hair sprouted from his scalp, and the swelling in his nose went down.

"What the-"

Now that his face was no longer marred by the multitude of deep cuts, Tony realised that it did not belong to a man as he had expected, but a boy, no older than thirteen, with unhealthily pale skin and dark hair stuck to his scalp by the water.

Yinsen turned to Tony, who was still watching the boy. He noticed a metal band wrapped around each of this wrists, fused with the angry red skin around it.

"Who is he?"

"His name is Pet-Harry." Yinsen replied, getting up and moving over the the fire. "He was here before I arrived. Other than that I know nothing. I don't even know where he is from, other than it was a bad place. They ask me to make a super soldier serum from his blood, or weapons."

"They..." Tony broke off, his eyes still on the small body on the camp bed.

"They do this to him every week." Yinsen said, looking over at Harry sadly. "But he is not broken. He tells me he is lucky." He shook his head. "Come, get some sleep. Raza will want you working straight away tomorrow."