He had found Wyatt first.

“Not a clone,” he’d hummed, grasp on Wyatt’s cheeks tight. He turned Wyatt’s head left, ignoring the venomous look Wyatt was giving him. “Hm. I read about you. And the other one.”

His gaze shifted lazily around the room. “Seems like you’re all alone now, though. Whatever could you need from the very lab you escaped from?”

Wyatt squeezed his eyes shut, the image of you flashing through his mind. Sickly, breathing ragged, laid out in some long abandoned hospital on the outskirts of the city. Wyatt clenched his jaw and said nothing. So he continued on, completely unbothered by Wyatt’s silence.

“Your sick friend doesn’t have much time left,” he said, releasing Wyatt’s face. “I know what you need.”

He shouldn’t make a deal with the devil. Every instinct inside of him screamed. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Wyatt needed to get out of there, away from him. But then he remembered your cough that wasn’t getting better, how pale your lips were.

“What do you want from me?” Wyatt asked. He felt like a cornered dog, snapping and growling.

The other man clicked his tongue. “Where are your manners, Wyatt?” And his smile was slow, the kind that didn’t reach the void in his eyes. “My name is Lucius. I think we’re going to be very good friends.”

Lucius never asked Wyatt to do anything overtly dangerous. He never told Wyatt to kill, to hurt, just to break into different labs. All of them flashing that Deus Lab sign, some abandoned, others not. Stick some hard drive into one of the computers, collect the information, report everything to Lucius. Sometimes Lucius had someone with him. Not that Lucius ever let him close enough to see who it was.

And every time, Lucius stayed true to his word. The medicine you needed was handed over. A couple of pills. Wyatt hated it. He hated that your life was dependent on something so small.

“Such loyalty. You’re just like him,” Lucius said. He wasn’t looking at Wyatt, but at the hard drive Wyatt had handed back. Lucius often spoke in circles; Wyatt had given up trying to understand.

Wyatt held the bottle of pills tight. “There was a body in there,” he said suddenly. “Frozen. It…”

Some Enhanced named Henry Wood. Wyatt had skimmed the file. Formerly a hero named Hotshot, renamed himself Archer, eliminated for getting too close to something. Wyatt had stared at the other Enhanced frozen form, a lump in his throat. That wouldn’t been him. Another Enhanced for them to test on. He didn’t know why they had his body. Would Lucius have an answer.

“Never mind,” Wyatt said after a long moment. Whatever Lucius was digging into, whatever got that Archer killed, Wyatt wanted nothing to do with it.

You were his priority. Wyatt was doing this for you, not to save Enhanced. He barely considered himself one.

He left Lucius in a building that would vanish by the morning. Lucius was never in the same spot twice. Wyatt didn’t question that either.

Once he made it home (that empty hospital had endeared itself to him), made it to you, Wyatt collapsed at your side. “They’re monsters,” he whispered to you, helping you sit up. You shared one of the beds with him. The mattress was lumpy and the blankets stiff, but Wyatt didn’t mind. “They had this body. Some hero from years ago.” Wyatt cut himself off, shaking his head. “Sorry, sorry. You don’t need to hear that.”

More stress wasn’t going to heal you.

Wyatt crushed up one of the pills, putting it in your water. “Drink all of it. I know it tastes bad.” He pulled out the mints he’d stolen from a gas station on the way back. “You can have two when you finish all of it.”

You looked… better. He knew the medicine would stop being effective eventually, Lucius had warned him, but hope managed to coil tight in his chest. At least you were moving now. Speaking. Looking at him. For days you’d laid so limp he thought you’d died. Wyatt had time now, and he would save you.

No matter the price.