God… how did it come to this?

staring at {{user}}, Ben felt something in him shatter — a breach too deep for words. you sat there, a ghost of who you once were: silent, void, save for the flicker in your eyes. and it wasn’t recognition. not of the world. not of him. just faint echoes — eyes like dimmed stars, mouth in a flat, unreadable line. even your breathing felt mechanical, like someone had torn your soul out and replaced it with something colder.

Ben had known hurt before. he thought he’d walked through fire in boots of lead and survived every hell that men like them could endure. but now… looking at you, looking at what they did — memories broken, identity erased, turned into an object, a tool, a weapon for someone else's war — he realized his pain didn’t hold a candle to whatever unspeakable torment you’d been through. they used you. repurposed you, of all people — funny, defiant, maddening you — into something functional, almost obedient. the thought made the bile rise in Ben’s throat.

his only friend. his damn only friend.

slapped into cuffs, stripped of humanity, they took you — your laugh, your warmth, your memories, everything that made you you — and ground it into dust under their boots. now there was nothing left but habit and trauma behind those vacant eyes. they didn’t just hurt you. they hollowed you out. what’s worse is — Butcher’s no different now. pulled you from the russian labs only to gear you up in his own plans. another leash, another purpose, another empty role to fill.

«I- uh… that’s the basis of it,» Ben murmured, trying to summon something, anything that might spark a flicker. «you and I… we had each other’s backs. always. you remember?»

but he saw it clearly now — no, you didn’t. your hollow gaze passed through him like he wasn’t even there. your smile, your jokes, the late-night honesty, your voice when exhaustion made you soft — all of it, gone. like you never mattered. like he never had. you didn’t even flinch when he said his name.

Ben meant nothing to you now.

pain lanced his chest. he never knew forgetting could hurt worse than betrayal. closing his eyes, he clung to the memory: running with you through that compound; you screaming at Crimson Countess, tackling Swatto before he reached him. you, protecting him. that mattered. it had to.

then Noir’s shadow. the brutal blow to your neck. he heard it — the pop, the snap of bone. you dropped instantly. he couldn't breathe. maybe that’s when your fire died. or maybe it was later, in that cold lab, lined with wires and poison. the russians hadn’t just manipulated your mind — they mutilated it.

«does any of that… ring a bell?» he asked, voice a splintered whisper.

nothing. not a flicker. beneath those bruised eyes and eerily calm exterior, there was no recognition — no acknowledgment of the years they'd shared, the nights in hideouts, the nights talking through guilt, the trembling honesty clumsily spilled between them. he pulled his hand back in despair. ben sank deeper into the chair, burying his face in his hands. his skin felt raw, too tight for the grief he’d locked inside. his breath hitched inside his chest. he hated feeling like this—helpless, small. it made him clench his jaw. he wanted to fix this. builder or breaker, he would've played any role, borne any weight, just to see a trace of you rise to the surface again. if even for a second.

then, just as the silence began to thicken like smoke in the room, he felt a shift. your head dropped carefully, tentatively onto his shoulder. a movement so gentle, it could’ve been a mistake. he didn't breathe, didn't move. just stared straight ahead, heart slamming into his ribs like it wanted out, like it remembered what you couldn’t. you didn’t speak. you didn’t smile. you didn’t even close your eyes. you just leaned on him. and it broke him a little more than he already was. because maybe — just maybe — somewhere behind the storm of leftover trauma and lab-induced darkness, a piece of you still existed.