"I'm back!"

Bakuda's voice echoed through the dingy apartment. Her normal, human voice, specifically.

That was noteworthy, Weld thought. Aside from the one time when she'd snapped at him, Bakuda had kept her mask on for the past couple days.

Sometimes she worked in the same room as Weld, jotting down notes and occasionally looking him over before returning to her notes. Other times she disappeared into the other room. Weld had no idea what she did in there. Probably tinkering,

At first Weld thought Bakuda was addressing him, or maybe someone else in the dingy apartment. But then he noticed blinking red lights around the room dim at the sound of her voice.

She had a defense system. Of course she had a defense system. Weld didn't want to think what horrifying fates a bomb tinker might inflict on intruders. He hoped his teammates wouldn't find him as much as he hoped they did.

Bakuda stepped into his line of sight. Weld would have jumped in surprise if he could.

The Asian woman glowered back at him. Her hair had been pulled back into a bun but it was now in disarray. Mascara ran down her face like tears, highlighting a piercing blue glare. She was wrapped in some sort of duster that looked like it had been through hell.

In all honesty, she looked like she had been through hell.

There were two reasons for someone to look like that, in Weld's experience. Either she had been in a fight, or she had gotten roaring, blackout drunk. Probably both, considering who she was.

"The fuck you looking at?" Bakuda hissed at him. Weld would have shrugged to piss her off, if he could. He settled for staring her down.

Bakuda didn't seem bothered by that. She staggered over to her desk and pulled out the chair. She hesitated for a second, apparently weighing her options, before kicking the chair over and sprawling out on the floor instead.

Her ragged white tanktop bore the logo of a New York hero that Weld recognized. Her jeans were the same style as Gigi's.

"You know what's fucked," Bakuda said, interrupting Weld's thoughts. She was staring up at the ceiling, gaze fixated on the fan above her. "I just drank so much fucking booze—"

She burped, patted herself on the stomach as if to make sure it was still there, and continued. "—And I feel like shit. Isn't that fucked?"

Weld didn't respond.

"Hey, fuck you, buddy." Bakuda picked up a pencil that had fallen to the floor and lobbed it at him. It bounced off the glass face his cell. She threw a balled up sandwich wrapper and missed. "Yeah, fuck you. You're bringing down the mood. Fucking asshole."

With what looked like a lot of effort, Bakuda hauled herself to her feet and staggered out of sight. Weld watched her go.

He'd never been one to get wasted, obviously. Even if alcohol could affect him, which was nothing more than a fever dream, he wasn't interested in what it had to offer. He had a job that he enjoyed, he had friends who he had fun with. He had a trajectory in life, upward momentum. What was the point of it?

That's not to say he was judgmental like that. Weld remembered when the team had their first big victory under his leadership.

Bell Curve had smuggled a bottle of tequila into the base, nicked from her older sister. Weld had watched as his teammates poured out their shots, giggling like kids in their excitement. Slant had caught his eye as she raised the glass to her lips and given him a sly wink. Weld raised a glass in reply. His team had all tipped back their drinks.

"It tastes fucking nasty," Virtu had gagged out between coughing fits. Everyone burst out laughing, nodding in agreement or taking another sip.

Encouraged by the reaction, Weld had raised his own shot and knocked it back in a single go. Weld remembered the cheers and applause as his team watched.

He hadn't tasted a thing.

The night progressed and the celebration got rowdier. Gigi pulled him away from the team, a smile dancing across her flushed face. Weld was confused at first, until he saw the look on her face.

"Come on, hero," she said, voice oozing with secrets, temptations, a million other taboo things. "Let's get away from these kids."

He remembered the spark in her eyes as she knelt before him. Him, perched on the edge of her bed, and her, shaking with excitement.

His pants seemed to just come undone under her ministrations, until she held his cock in her hands. Eight inches long, hard as steel, gleaming in the low light of her room.

"Well, well, well, that sure is something," Gigi breathed. "Don't you know we're not supposed to be packing weapons of mass destruction, team leader?"

Weld's hand stroked through her frizzy black hair shakily. He couldn't think of something to say. It wasn't really his, in the way it was to other men. He'd molded it, much the same way he'd molded the rest of his body, but that seemed like the wrong thing to say right now. Gigi just giggled at him.

"Don't worry, Weld. Seeing as I have, hm, seniority here, I guess I'll take point."

She drew her tongue from the tip of his shaft all the down, then back up. She looked back up at him, a pout on her face.

"Not even a twitch? You sure are stoic all over, huh?" His hand tightened in her hair. Her tongue lolled around the head of his cock. "Now that's a bit better. Let's get this show on the road."

She dove back in, as confident as Slant might dive into any fray. She had to open wide to accommodate his girth, her teeth almost scraping him. Then they did. It didn't even sting, but Weld shivered in response.

Encouraged, Gigi pushed forward, almost choking herself on Weld's dick. He imagined he could feel himself sliding all the way down her throat. In reality, he could only feel a slight pressure.

Gigi's tongue lathed his shaft as she went down on him. When she found she couldn't take all of him in her mouth, she used her hands.

Her hands were small, dainty Weld liked to think, but they gripped his cock with what should have been crushing force. She bobbed up and down his rod, caressing what she couldn't suck with a deceptively strong grip.

Warm, wet, velvety soft, the blowjob was all those things, but Weld barely flinched.

Gigi noticed his lack of a response, she always did, and she took that as a challenge. Her pace increased, superhumanly fast, bringing her head back to almost plant a kiss on his head before plunging back down.

She moaned around him, and he felt the vibrations, but it didn't feel good . It just felt.

Gigi pulled one of her hands from Weld's shaft, bringing it down between her legs. Her hands snuck down the tight waistband of her sweatpants and she moaned , for real this time. He could see her fingers jerking through the thin fabric, see the wet spot spreading out like ripples in a pond.

She looked really good. She sounded really good. But she didn't feel like much at all.

Gigi's hand sped up. She sucked harder, a veritable vacuum on his dick that Weld imagined would send any other man to heaven in moments. Spit was lathered over nearly every inch of his shaft, some finding its way to Gigi's face as she fucked her face on him.

She was gasping and moaning with every breath she got, face twisted in sheer pleasure. Her eyes looked up at him pleadingly.

Weld didn't know what to say. Words came to him anyway. "Come for me. Come harder than you ever have before."

She did. Weld watched as she came undone before him, her knees shaking hard enough to fray the carpet. Her head fell back, and she let out a keen of pleasure, uninhibited by his steely member.

Then she slumped into him, gasping for breath, resting her face against his undisturbed erection.

The two of them had wiled the rest of the night away, curled up in her bed. That was the part that Weld enjoyed, the part where he felt something. Even if…

"So, um, can you come?" Gigi had asked. She grinded her ass into his crotch meaningfully before looking over her shoulder at him. "Like, have you tried? Or has it happened before at all?"

"I don't know," Weld lied. He added, hastily, "It's never...I've never come since I can remember, at least."

"Mm," she said. Her voice was bleary with sleep and far too many drinks. "I bet I'm the first one to ask something like that, huh?"

"No, actually," he said. "I've been asked by fans more than a few times. People want to know the weirdest things, you know."

"Oh." She pressed her arm into his, forcing him to clutch her tighter to his chest. "Duh. Of course."

"We can try again, if you want," Weld offered.

Gigi elbowed him. "Duh. Of course. Don't think I'm letting you get off that easy. Or...not get off, I guess. I could try with my power next time. We can try a lot of stuff. We've got time, right?"

"Right," he said. "All the time in the world."

She was quiet for a while, except for the sound of her soft breaths and the patter of her heartbeat. Weld was simply quiet.

"What's something you've never told anyone, then?" Gigi asked. She planted a kiss on his hand. "Something about yourself that no one else knows? Just for me?"

Weld had tried to think of something, he really had. He remembered his first memories of waking up in the scrapyard. The PRT had been there to document the whole thing.

He remembered the arduous process of joining the Wards, helped along by Armstrong and Chambers every step of the way. He remembered his time with the Boston team, the good and the bad. The good outweighed the bad by a lot, because he had his fellow Wards.

"I don't know," Weld replied honestly. Gigi didn't have anything to say in response to that.

Weld hung his head, the greatest range of movement he had in the damned cage. Every once in a while, the liquid hot metal would configure in the right way and he could regain some control of his body. But it never lasted.

Not for the first time, Weld longed for the release that sleep could provide. He knew based on his interactions with Virtu that someone could sleep for at least fourteen hours a day. Sometimes more.

Weld could maybe drift off for half an hour, but it wasn't true sleep. He'd read up on it. It was more like the dreamy state someone might fall into before sleep. It would be generous to even call it half-asleep.

It made sense, though. Weld wasn't even half alive. He didn't operate like a person, without a need for food or drink or even air. His heart didn't beat inside his chest unless he forced it to. For god's sakes, he was hanging inside a glorified pot of boiling steel with half his body stripped away and he could metacognate as well as ever.

He knew all this. It still hurt to remember. It still hurt to have no escape from the pressure. Instead, he'd hung here wide awake for three days.

Bakuda stumbled out of her bedroom, looking even worse than she had last night. Weld's gaze snapped to her, eager for any sort of distraction from his own thoughts.

She'd lost her coat and her pants at some point, leaving her clad in only her tank and a pair of black panties, but at least she'd lost the runny makeup too.

She winced when the sun from the window hit her but recovered quickly. The young woman stretched, her top riding up enough to show off a toned belly, before she made her way to the sink to pour herself a glass of water.

She chugged it down greedily, rivulets of water pouring down her throat and staining her shirt. Weld averted his eyes, suddenly uncomfortable at ogling a stranger. Especially a stranger with a record like hers. Still, he wasn't above needling her.

"Fun night?" Weld asked, loudly enough to make her jump.

Without missing a beat, she threw the half-empty cup of water at him. The glass shattered on the floor in front of his cage.

"Fuck off!" she snarled. She stormed back into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Weld suspected she wouldn't be out for hours at least. Today was looking like another long, boring day.