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It was late. 

That was the first thing he was aware of. The insistent protest of his internal clock that this was a time he should never see. Hydra would have been tired, anyway—  they’d all gotten back from an expo in Stockholm the previous day, and the travel and time difference had really exhausted him. He’d collapsed into bed as soon as he’d got there, not caring that he was tracking about five countries’ worth of dirt with him. 

He sat up slowly, feeling… odd. Too sensitive, somehow, the slight slosh of the liquid in his internal tank terrifyingly palpable. Something was wrong; the room was too hot; it hurt too much to move. Where was—  

Leaning over, he clawed around on the floor next to the bunk. Found, to his immense relief, something soft and fuzzy. Held the oversized toy polar bear to his chest, breathing in the faded scent of the herb pillow that they’d sewn into its head. That calmed him down a little, but did nothing for the strange, raw ache in his abdomen, or the uncomfortable itch that was starting to permeate his ventilation pipes. 

“Natalie?” he said, mumbled frowned, choking back a cough. His voice was just a hoarse whisper. And besides that, he’d not had a night nanny around for months—  the intercom went somewhere else, now. Was under his control. He pressed the button on the wall to enable it. “Um, night staff?” 

There was a crackle as someone on the other end picked up. 

“Reading you,” they said. 

“I, uh…” He’d not thought this through. “I don’t feel good. What—  what am I s’posed to do?” 

Hydra was trying, truly very hard, to follow procedure. Or at least to remember what it was. But he missed Natalie terribly, and he was scared and tired and maybe going to throw up, and not even Ursus Maritimus could help with that. He squeezed the bear tighter, taking slow, shaky breaths. 

“Hang tight, I’ll be with you in a second,” the voice on the intercom soothed. He recognised it as Ruby, one of the junior engineers. “Try and have info ready for me, okay?” 

“Okay,” Hydra mumbled, but the intercom had already clicked off. 

He didn’t like being so reliant. He wasn’t a child; at fourteen, most trains would have been apprenticed for years already. But cryogenics were different, volatile, as were prototypes—  and Hydra was both. He curled up on one side and waited, Ursus Maritimus held tight to his chest.

When the engineer arrived, she flicked the lights on. Hydra scrunched his eyes shut, whining in protest. 

“What’s up, kid?”

“I don’t feel good,” Hydra repeated, already distraught at the prospect. “Everything hurts, n’all my air pipes are itchy.” 

“You don’t sound good, either,” Ruby sighed. A small, cool hand touched his face, tensed a little at the contact. “Oh, you’re warm. I’m betting you brought something back with you from Sweden. No alarms, though?” 

“Nope,” Hydra answered. No alarms meant it couldn’t be that bad, right? He could probably just stay right there? 

It hurt to talk.  

“Do you want some tea?” 

She didn’t mean tea like humans got, because he wasn’t allowed that. Probably, instead, a medicated aqueous solution of something, warmed up enough to be soothing. At the thought of that, the nausea rose in his throat again.

He shook his head. Knew what his refusal would mean. 

“You’re not in trouble, okay?” Ruby began. “But I need you to be honest with me. Could this start a tank purge?” 

Truly miserable, Hydra gave a little nod. He was comfortable in bed, cosy in his blankets and dust-resistant pajamas. And he really, really didn’t want to move. But they’d been careful, with his systems; designed around the sheer danger of false negatives. It was all part of saving the world.

“Vent room,” Ruby said. “Now. You can bring your blanket, if you want.” 

He wasn’t supposed to do that, but he took the small mercy. It wasn’t a long trip—  just across the atrium—  but it felt like one, every part of his construction seeming somehow, dizzyingly, out of place as he moved. Settling into the blank sterility of the ventilated purge room just made it worse. Ruby helped him into the mask first, just in case, then hooked up the hoses to start his internal tank draining. 

And then she left. 

Hydra was alone. 

Would be alone for a while. Either until the drain-and-purge was over, or until he was feeling better. Back when they’d still had Natalie around, there would have at least been someone with arms big enough to wrap around him, who could safely hold his hand until the pumps started properly running. 

Now, it was just him, and the humans. Ruby, watching through the dark little security camera on the opposite wall, completely out of reach for at least the next eight hours. The blanket around his shoulders was little comfort. He’d brought his pillow, but he couldn’t lie down—  he wasn’t supposed to move with all the tubes attached.