DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters except for Agent Ragan Courtenay, Jung Chan, Floyd Stephens, General Morrison and Mr. Bradshaw. Everything else belongs to Marvel.

~Xx


The pain was driving him insane. He pulled and struggled against the restraints and cried out until his voice was hoarse. Finally, he heard his cell door open and gentle arms held him steady.

"Ragan?" he gasped.

"Hold still," a masculine voice responded.

"My eye is on fire," Fury moaned.

"I know. Hold still. I'm going to flush it with water." A moment later, something cool and wet slipped over Fury's eye, down the side of his face, taking the fire with it. An itchy, stinging pain was all that remained. The wetness was quickly dried away with some type of cloth. Fury groaned with relief.

"Did that help?" another distant voice asked anxiously. "There was a lot of water left in that bottle. I only drank out of it once."

"Seriously, Stark?" said the first man incredulously.

"Yeah, it helped," said Fury, struggling to sit up. "Howard Stark, is that you?"

"In the flesh," replied Stark. "I'll give you an autograph later, assuming you'll be able to see it. I take it that you were supposed to be my extraction team?"

"Half of it," Fury verified. "Who else is here?"

"I'm Hank Pym of Pym Technologies. I should be as famous as Stark here, but apparently I'm not."

"That's because I'm young and handsome and you're, well…"

"What happened to my eye?" Fury interrupted. Hank sighed heavily.

"I'm no doctor, but it looks like someone threw a lot of acid or something in it."

"Carborane acid, by the looks of it," Stark agreed. "That stuff is strong."

Fury battled down the panic rising in the pit of his stomach. "Will I ever be able to use it again?"

"No," Stark said bluntly. "Carborane acid is highly toxic and a lot of it got directly on the surface of your eye. You're lucky none of it got in your other eye or you'd be blind in both."

"I'm going to wrap it up with something so you can open your right eye," said Pym, and a second later, Fury heard the sound of something ripping. Then a rough strip of cloth was bound firmly around his head over his left eye and secured. Carefully, he opened his right eye. He was in a prison cell, and Hank Pym was sitting next to him in gray prison garb, observing him closely. Howard Stark, looking worse for the wear, was watching with interest two cells away.

Fury frowned in confusion. "Is that your cell, Pym?" he asked, gesturing toward the empty cell between his and Stark's.

"Yes."

Fury raised an eyebrow.

"I stole the keys when the guards weren't looking," Stark called. "Honestly, guards are so incompetent."

"Did they take all your weapons?" Hank Pym asked. "You don't have a knife in your boot or a Taser in your pocket or anything?"

"No, they took everything," Fury sighed, shoving a hand into his pocket. His fingers came into contact with something small and hard. "There is this, though," he said, pulling out the ear communicator. Hank's eyes widened and he snatched the ear piece from Fury's grasp. "It's useless, though, unless we want to contact Ivan Sergey," Fury pointed out. But Pym wasn't listening.

"Stark," he said, breathless with excitement. "It's my SHIELD ear comm!"

Howard Stark sat up quickly. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! There's a tiny freaking eagle printed on the side!"

"Well, it's not like I can see it from here!"

"What's shield?" Fury cut in.

Pym turned to him. "It stands for Strategic —"

"Shut up, someone's coming," Stark hissed. Pym scrambled to get out of Fury's cell and into his own, slipping the keys to Stark right before two armed guards entered. Wordlessly, they entered Fury's cell and hauled him to his feet, securing his hands behind him once more. Fury could feel Pym's and Stark's eyes on him as he was led from the room.

Fury was taken to a small interrogation room where Ragan Courtenay was waiting. He'd thought that his first reaction upon seeing her once more would have been wild uncontrollable hate or something similar, but all he felt was a smooth calculation of her as he was shoved into a chair, his shackled arms looped over the back rest.

"Sorry about the kiss," Courtenay started out. "I hope you didn't think I meant anything by it. I just had to get close enough to toss the acid in your eye. I was actually never meant to do that. The plan… fell apart a little… and suddenly you were disarming the Vesuvius and we had to think fast before you could finish. But anyways. I thought you might want to talk." She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. It felt wrong, both of them sitting there, like everything was almost right, but not quite.

"Well, you thought wrong," Fury responded coolly. "From one spy to another, I understand how this works."

"Well then," said Courtenay, "I have some questions for you." Suddenly, she was leaning over him, palms face down on the table, looking at him intently. Her eyes held an unfamiliar dark anger. "Why are you really here?"

The question caught Fury off guard and his mind began to race. He decided to pretend he had something to hide, to see where it led him. He shrugged carelessly. "Let me think. Oh, right – I'm sitting here because your Russian guards dragged me here and locked me up. It wasn't my call, trust me. Can I return to my cell?"

Courtenay's beautiful eyes glinted dangerously. "Don't play games with me, Nicholas. And no, you can't return to your cell. Not until you tell me everything that SHIELD is planning." That name again. SHIELD. Who were they?

"SHIELD," said Fury musingly. He cocked his head at her. "As if SHIELD would willingly give information to anyone on your side." He held his breath, waiting for her response. Was there another side?

Courtenay smiled slowly. "You forget that HYDRA was formed before SHIELD. We have had a much longer period of time in which to organize ourselves. Did you think it was a coincidence that the Vesuvius was being shipped to a base so close to our headquarters?"

Not quite sure how to respond, Fury changed tactics. "How did you find out that I was with SHIELD?"

Courtenay shrugged. "A lucky guess. One that is going to pay off here in a minute when you start talking."

"A lucky guess," Fury scoffed, his mind racing. Tiny details of their trip began to float to the surface of his mind, and he suddenly wanted to kill himself for not realizing that she was a double agent sooner. "I knew you were HYDRA from the start."

Ragan raised both eyebrows stiffly. "Explain."

Fur shifted. His arms were starting to fall asleep behind the back of his chair. "First of all, the extreme coincidence that Chan and Stephens were on the same flight we were. General Morrison book that flight himself under a different name about five hours before the plane took off, yet there they were, on a flight from Washington, D.C., America to Kalinovka, Kazakhstan." Fury paused as more pieces of the puzzle fitted themselves into place. "You arranged for them to escape the plane. You freed them while I was asleep and threatened a passenger into telling me that he did it. That's why he was so nervous. You also threatened Chan and Stephens into holding up under the interrogation, which explains why were you so happy to shoot Jung Chan in the leg and why you got so angry when Stephens didn't hold up."

Courtenay's eyes flashed. "I should have killed him when I had the chance," she muttered.

"Your backstory," Fury remembered suddenly. "It was made up so I would trust you more quickly."

Courtenay gave a hint of a smile. "You're wrong," she said. "That tragic backstory was really my own. The only thing I didn't tell you was that Mr. Bradshaw, the naval officer who adopted me after my uncle died, was a HYDRA officer. That's how I discovered it."

"Thank you for being so honest with me during this interrogation," said Fury, "but I have one last question which I am sure you will be happy to answer. What is HYDRA planning to do with the Vesuvius?"

Courtenay stood suddenly. "No. It's your loss, not knowing. Tell me what SHIELD is planning or I will make you."

"Your loss."

"Tell me."

Fury said nothing.

"Tell. Me. NOW."

"Watch that temper, darling. I remember you saying something about how uncooperative hostages stress you out."

Courtenay glared daggers into him but sank slowly into her chair. "Fine. I'll settle for an exchange of information. I tell you what HYDRA is planning, you tell me what SHIELD is planning."

"SHIELD doesn't negotiate," Fury responded, hoping they didn't. "And it's not that hard to guess what HYDRA is up to, come to think of it. Vesuvius, top assassins… my guess is that HYDRA managed to sneak agents into SHIELD and is preparing to overthrow it. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. I'm not going to tell you SHIELD's plan. I can hold up under months of torture and by then, you'll have found out for yourself what they're planning. HYDRA will be no more."

"Cut off a head, and two more will take its place." Courtenay's voice was cold and hard, her eyes dark and dangerous. It sent a shiver down Fury's spine. "Take him back to his cell. We'll finish this later. Hail HYDRA."


Hope you enjoyed! Chapter 8 to come soon. :)