hi, this will always bother me.
i really hate that laura just stood there. josh and laura were friends and he risked his life to save her. he refused to let her die. it’s so fucking weird that she didn’t return the favor. it’s just... weirdly dispassionate considering josh risked falling into molten metal to cure her of the legacy virus and entangled himself deeper into the x-force specifically to help her.
but anyway, that aside - it was a coloring error that josh didn’t start turning gold when siphon attacked him. but my headcanon is he did die during this. after he died his body did a hard reboot and started up as gold again. josh realized laura just stood by while he was killed and took off, going into hiding again.
that was the first time his friends heard that he died. laura probably went back and said he was killed and then went back to collect a corpse, only to find none.