Warning - This one. . . is going to be hard to read. Rest assured it was hard to write too. If you trigger easily, you might want to skip it, or by all means skip the second and third chapters. the rest of the story will still mostly make sense if you do. I don't think any of it is really M rated, but it certainly is a strong T. There are some very mature themes ahead, and given FFN's recent crackdown on improperly rated stuff. . . well, I don't want this to get deleted. Oh, and there is some language too. . .

I won't ask you to enjoy it, but do please review! This was a seriously difficult piece - I'd like to think I wrote it well, at least. This story has been swimming around in my mind, kind of haunting me for almost two years now - it just had to be written, and it won't feel finished until someone reads it. Please let me know what you think!

Dedicated to everyone out there who has ever felt unworthy of the one they love.

Never

Dawn

Dawn was a different sort of thing when you were buried alive in damp caves, Tony had discovered. He had been used to waking up at various times all his life, and getting up at first light was nothing new, since he had done practically that almost every time he'd had "company" over for a night. He would often wake up just as the sky was turning grey, and there would be this intense need to get away from the stranger in his bed. So he'd make sure whoever it was, was still asleep, and in the blue shades of early morning he'd go freshen up in the outdoor shower stall next to the pool. He was always a little disappointed when it was raining and he couldn't shower outside in the mornings. It smelled so. . . clean. Mornings ought to smell clean, he thought.

Then Pepper would come with his coffee, and he would feel clean, somehow.

Six A.M. in a cave was vastly different. It was dark, and although the air was cold, it was dank and muggy from poor ventilation. Most of the rooms he had access to were also smelly from poor hygiene and drainage. His first thought every morning was home, and then her. He never named her, even in his mind. He didn't know when this enforced labor was going to change into out-and-out torture, and he wasn't - was not - going to say her name to anyone. Not even himself. Too, he'd almost always wake up with a racing heart from the edges of a nightmare he couldn't remember and didn't want to - though if he could have only named the terror his mind threw at him every night, he might have been able to fight it. Sleeping tired him out more than the work did, and he wasn't entirely certain the dreams weren't going to drive him mad.

Wake up and smell the fear.

Then he would shake his head and check to make sure the arc reactor was still working right.

He'd get up and poke Yinsen in the shoulder, and they'd work on the armor for a few hours before someone came and shoved a plate of half-stale flatbread and a few bowls of oddly spiced protein pastes through a hole in the door. Then they'd work more, with no further refeshment except for the metallic tasting, tepid water Yinsen insisted they boil before drinking. Twice a week they were given tea leaves, which they steeped tied in the toe of a sock.

Practically the only thing that was the same as his old life was a burning, intense desire to get away.

He let Yinsen take care of counting the days. If he had had to count them himself he would have cracked. Day after day, day after day - working on the one thing that might win him freedom, and pretending to work on the one thing that could only earn him shame and death, and trying with every fiber of his being to just survive in between all that - it was enough. He didn't care how long it took, and if he had forced himself to care, it would have been one thing too many.

"It's been two weeks, Stark," Yinsen said one morning over breakfast, "Twice as long as you thought you could make it." He gestured at the arc reactor.

Tony was surprised it had been that long, but he took care not to show it. "Mmm, yeah, sure," he replied, absently, "We need to work on the servomotors for Section Four today, could you find the plans for them?"

Yinsen went over to the seemingly disorganized pile of plans and supplies - actually Tony kept meticulous mental inventory of absolutely everything that was on the few worktables they had been allowed - and riffled through the crudely drawn pages for the plans of one of the legs of the suit of armor they were building.

"Stark," said Yinsen, conversationally, "It has been two weeks, you know."

"Yeah, what about it?" said Tony, mumbling around the last piece of their morning bread, and ambling over to the worktable with the parts for the armor's right leg on it.

"Two weeks, Stark, is when most men begin to. . . be men again." Yinsen spoke casually, but with a hint of seriousness, and a strange tone of worry back behind his words.

Tony blinked. He set up the first two pieces that needed welding. He itched the healing scar around the implant in his chest. Then he got it.

"I don't think you need to worry, Yinsen. I'll be able to. . . control it." For the first time in his life he felt embarrassed of his reputation, "It isn't like I came here looking for a good time - I do have priorities every now and then, you know."

Yinsen came over to the worktable with the plans in his hand, "I'm not worried about your ability to control yourself, Stark," he put the plans down and put a warning, yet comforting hand on his patient's shoulder, "I am worried what they will do once they think you are. . . yourself again."

"What could they do that wouldn't interrupt this bomb construction we're doing, huh?" Tony smirked, "Seemed to me that's what they wanted from me."

Yinsen nodded, "But you heard what they said too. . . what Bakaar said when you first woke up from the surgery - "The greatest mass murderer of our time" - remember?"

Tony grimaced, "I'm not likely to forget. . ."

"Then you must think, as I do, that it is not just what you can do that they want from you, but who you are."

Tony blinked slowly, and looked Yinsen in the face. "What are you talking about?"

Before Yinsen could answer, their door slammed open, and six guards came in, two taking Tony by the arms, two covering Yinsen, and two more flanking Raza, who looked Tony up and down very slowly.

"Bring the new prince," he said, and all at once Tony feared the absolute worst.

He was dragged down a dark corridor, twisting left and right, going uphill and down, and all with so much noise it was as though he was in a crowd of men, not merely six. He tried to count steps and turns, but he was lifted and spun too many times to be sure where he was. Then he was thrown into a very small stone room.

"Let the new prince be a man. . . if he can. . ." rumbled Raza's voice, and all the guards laughed raucously, "And remember that I have generously given you this privilege." Then he turned away, and the guards followed him.

Tony's eyes had quickly adjusted in the dimly lit alcove, and he made out a huddled figure in one corner before the heavy door slammed shut.

"One hour," a gruff voice said through the food hatch, and then it too slid closed with a definite clank.

Tony looked about him. There was a bunk and bucket half full of water along one wall, and a darkened lantern in the middle of the room. He moved to open it and have some more light, when he heard the cloth-wrapped bundle in the corner gasp a little, and it shuffled tighter into the narrow space. He opened the lantern, directing a harsh yellow glare against whatever it was. He left the lantern on the floor, and went over to the corner, reaching out and pulling back a hood of coarse, dusty blue cloth from a wide-eyed, terrified head.

It was a girl.