Almosts Lost to Time
This is an extra piece that fits somewhere in the next chapter but has no real place in the flow of it. This doesn't really play that big in the grand scheme of things more of a filler that came to me.
/
Eyes widened in recognition and fear when his assailant entered his view. He had heard descriptions of him and to be honest they did nothing to capture the pure terror seeing the soldier brought him. Him, a trained SHIELD agent, knew he was no match against the being that stalked into his living room with barely a sound. His bullets did nothing against the metal arm he knew to be under the tactical jacket.
His fingers barely twitched to his cellphone before the world fell away from him as the force of the metal appendage smashed into his head.
The attacker grabbed the man by his hair and dragged him out of the apartment, eyes dead with no emotion flickering behind the tactile goggles and mouth set in a straight line behind his face mask.
Mission Complete
/
The body was dropped unceremoniously to the floor before two people swarmed to restrain the man to the center chair.
The room wasn't dark but it wasn't well lit either. There was just enough light to see a few feet around the center chair the man was now tied to. The room was old, clearly out of date and in disuse as the holes in the walls and debris on the floor could tell you. They didn't need fancy for this. This was dirty and dark and he wouldn't get out alive anyway.
Alexander Pierce strode in as calm as ever, his pristine three-piece suit clearly out of place in this setting. But he commanded respect as all eyes turned to him, awaiting orders.
His sharp eyes drifted to the man in the corner, the one responsible for the prisoner being here, and let a satisfied smile cross his features. Hs asset had completed his mission flawlessly. It was poetic, the man she was trying so desperately to save would be the source of her undoing.
"Soldier, training begins at 03:00. Afterward, I want you to submit yourself for testing."
It was clinical, no consideration that he had been up for close to 42 hours already and these commands requiring him to remain awake for another eight hours at least. But there were no complaints from the soldier, those dead eyes freed from the protection of his goggles and Pierce would always feel that smugness at seeing that look, at having defeated the man that had challenged him, dared to break free of his training. It gave him great satisfaction to see not only her failure but his success in wiping away what remained of James Barnes.
The soldier walked by with no hesitation, no disobedience, taking his orders like the dog he was.
With the face mask, Pierce and the other agent's failure to see the Asset clench his jaw.
/
Pierce looked down his nose at the man in front of him. He was nothing special. Just another SHIELD agents with a mediocre record. But he wasn't interested in the man's ability, he was interested in what he knew. And as a mainstay on Rynan Potter's team for missions, Maes Engelward was the perfect little toy for Pierce to get the information he wanted. Since his first mission with Rynan, he had been with her only all other missions. Outside Romanoff and Barton, this was the SHIELD agent closet to her. He would know any patterns, any abilities she could be hiding.
Dirty blond hair was yanked up, tired eyes struggling to focus. The image cleared and the man felt all brain function stop.
"You, you're HYDRA." There was no questioning tone. In this line of work, assessing the situation was always critical for survival. And his assessment concluded that if this man was here, unchained, staring down at him with those same eyes he had during briefings, he knew they had been betrayed.
There was no smile, not even a confirmation; the man motioned for a chair to be brought over and it was.
Weary eyes followed his movements, knowing that he couldn't fight against his restraints.
Once seated, the man crossed his legs and leaned back.
"You're probably wondering why you're here. We have a common friend and I'd like to know more about her."
What was he talking about? He had all the information on SHIELD agents already at his disposable.
"A Ms. Rynan Potter."
His blood ran cold and the man smiled, knowing he had him.
"What's there to tell? She's a spitfire with the luck of a leprechaun and nerves of steel." His eyes darted to the people standing off to the side. He didn't trust them.
He let out a harsh chuckle, "Oh, I know that. She has a talent for sticking her nose where it doesn't belong."
Engleward said nothing, gathering all the strength and bravery he could to endure what he knew would be his eventual death.
Pierce let a lip turn up, "Such loyalty. It's almost unnatural how she inspires others to her side." His eyes turned cold. "Loyalty does nothing for you now. You have two options: tell me what I want to know and you'll die quickly, don't and I will force it out of you with the cruelest torture imaginable and I will have my men kill your sister right before I kill you."
He struggled to not react to the threats, knowing that he couldn't do either. He couldn't betray Potter but he also couldn't let his sister die.
"No? You would choose a stranger over little Sophia? I'll be sure to tell her," he nodded to the people behind him.
Taken by surprise, Engleward didn't have time to do anything before his head was fully submerged in the water tank behind him. Water rushed down his nostrils as he thrashed his head, lungs full of water he had unintentionally breathed in.
Just when he thought he was going to black out, that he would drown, his chair was moved up, allowing him to cough up water from his lungs in hacking coughs that left his chest raw and his nose burning.
"She's only a girl, Maes. What has she done to earn your loyalty?" he softened his tone, painting Rynan as the cause for all this.
His head hung forward, trying to get what breath he could as he prepared himself to be submerged again.
His body seized, his nerves on fire. Blood filled his mouth as he bit his cheek open, trying to escape the pain of the electricity coursing through his body.
It went on forever. His spine arching against his binds, teeth feeling like they were about to crack, his head filled with noisy static yet no thought except pain.
A single sob escaped his clenched teeth before the current was terminated. Body still trembling, muscles out of his control, Maes wasn't sure he could hold out. He was a doctor, he knew the limits of the human body and mind. Being part of SHIELD, he knew the many ways to push both of these. There was no way to escape, no way to get the information out, that the person they had been looking for was right in front of them the entire time.
That Alexander Pierce was HYDRA.
It made sense. The attack in Ukraine, Potter's capture weeks ago, his interest in her. Potter had disclosed on their missions that she talked occasionally with the man and had gone on a few missions for him related to HYDRA.
How many more HYDRA agents were surrounding her? How long would it be until they uncovered her secret?
He was prepared for the submerging this time but it didn't make it any easier when his lungs began to protect, screaming for air. He had barely a second to gather himself before his nerves were on fire again.
It was an endless cycle and all he wanted to do was die.
Why was he here?
What did they want again?
After the fourth cycle of this, Maes lost consciousness, embracing the bliss of oblivion as his muscles spasmed and every breath felt like fire. He did even register the injection in his neck as his body slumped forward and his mind slipped away.
The promise of oblivion was not to be granted as hallucinated monsters clawed their way in from the outside of his mind.
/
Pierce was in a room operating as his office for the time being. He didn't want anyone handling the interrogation but him.
"Sir, shouldn't we be focusing our effort on Sam Wilson? They are extremely close, some reports speculate that they are involved intimately. She trusts him, would confide her secrets to him," the agent questioned his leader. He had been involved in the reconnaissance weeks ago in the lead up to Potter's capture. He had observed the two's relationship and saw that she behaved differently around him, opening herself up.
It was a good idea and something that had crossed his mind as a possible means to ending her but he discarded that. He knew Rynan and the type of person she was. She wouldn't tell him anything that could place him in danger. She would keep him in the dark and going after him would prove pointless in gathering information discretely.
Everything that man knew, Pierce knew already.
"I want to know how an untrained civilian can escape from the Asset with barely an injury. I want to know how she destroyed decades of programming in a single night. I want to know how she inspires such loyalty and admiration that –."
An agent stepped in the doorframe, drawing the two men's attention, "Sir, he's awake."
Good, Pierce thought. Maes Engleward was proving harder to break than he had anticipated. The man mainly operated as a medic so his resilience to torture was unexpected. He was probably using his training to compartmentalize the pain.
Entering into the cell, the man in question was a mess, a bloody, beaten, mess. But not yet broken. It had been two days of nonstop torture and the man had yet to give anything up. He was tired and confused but somehow he still held onto the sliver of lucidity that kept him from revealing Rynan's secrets.
"I would congratulate you on your loyalty, you'd make a fine HYDRA agent, but at the moment my desire for this information is greater." Moving closer and taking the offered syringe, Pierce stood over Engleward. "This is our newest truth serum. I hate that I have to waste what little we have on you but desperate times."
Engleward had enough strength to try and move his head out of the way but gloved hands held him firmly in place as the needle broke through his skin and the liquid flooded his arteries on the way to his brain.
Pierce stepped away to give the serum time to work as the doctors checked the prisoner. Getting the all clear, he began his questioning.
"Tell me about Rynan Potter. What is she hiding?" he commanded, losing his patience that it was taking this long to get information.
Everyone could see that the doctor was fighting the drug, veins bulging up from under his skin. It was still in the testing phase and there were complications, this being one of the reasons Pierce had yet to use it.
"What is she hiding!" he growled again, slapping the prisoner across the face. It seemed to work as he was speaking the next moment, head in the same position from the blow.
"…uncle…fought war…trained…"
"Her uncle? Does she have an uncle? I was under the impression the only family she had was her godson." The HYDRA commander gave orders for the information to be found and brought back. If she had an uncle that fought in the war and trained her, that would explain her skills and commitment to veterans. Was he Special Forces?
Finally getting some answers, Pierce relaxed into the questioning.
"I want to know what she did to inspire such loyalty from you."
Engleward began to struggle again but Pierce waited patiently through it, knowing that his serum would work.
"…saved my life…" he panted out, face red from exertion as his body pulled at his restraints.
Interesting. He had heard nothing in any of their reports from any mission concerning this. He only knew of Engleward saving Rynan on their first mission together.
"And when was this? How did she save your life?" he probed as shadows crossed the SHIELD agents face.
The light quality could be better but with their previous base being overrun by SHIELD agents, this was the closest base they could find that was operational. It lacked the sophistication of their other one but he wasn't one to complain seeing as his presence was rarely required.
A moment passed and then another with no answer.
"Answer me!"
A strangled moan escaped the man before he fell backwards, spine arching upwards as his body spasmed.
Pierce stood abruptly as the attending agents rushed to Englesward. Hands ran across every inch of his body as his binds were released to have better access to his vitals and stabilize his head.
Another agent approached with a needle and syringe but everything was over before the prisoner could be injected. All but one moved to stand up.
"What just happened?" Pierce demanded. They had been getting answers! Why did he suddenly die?
His attention was on the head doctor who had been in charge of keeping the man alive for questioning.
The agent in question shrunk back, "He suffered a stroke, sir."
"We can all see that," the sarcasm thick as he stared down at the corpse that had been his ticket to getting answers. "But why?"
"There-there's multiple reasons. His body was under extreme stress and combined with the serum which depresses the nervous system – the stress was too much for his body. There's also a possibility he had an undiagnosed brain aneurysm which ruptured due to his resistance to the serum and the stress of the last few days…"
Reigning in his emotions – he hadn't gotten this far by losing his composure – Pierce turned to exit the room, leaving the occupants to deal with the corpse while he figured out another strategy. Hopefully, the information on this uncle proved useful.
/
And it did. Just not in the way he was expecting. It's always said the past comes back to haunt us. Staring at the folder on his desk, the stinging loss of Engleward was dampened at the fruits of his confession.
It wasn't what he had predicted but it gave him answers to just what type of person he was dealing with.
They had the results from Rynan's blood tests and there was nothing different besides an abnormality they couldn't isolate. Genetically, there was nothing wrong with her but physiology, there seemed to be inhuman qualities about her.
Her body fought off the drug faster than a person her size and weight should be able to. They had catered the dose to be just above the recommended levels for her body type yet she had still woke up twice as fast. Her body seemed to adjust and respond quicker and quicker so that by the third day of her capture, she was only unconscious a half hour, not enough time for them to properly being their procedure.
He had ordered the go-ahead, wanting to see if it was only drugs her body responded adaptively to or if physical injury was included. She always bounced back from serious injuries faster than expected, though he saw her try to brush it off. The wounds from the failed attack in Ukraine that should've taken months of rehabilitation and healing was only weeks. She had her arm in a sling but he'd been able to tell that she had full function of it. Then there were her injuries when the Asset had first attacked her. With his strength, the blow to her head should've fractured her skull not to mention her trachea should've collapsed if the reports of strangulation were to be believed.
With the mention of her uncle, he had his agents dig into her past on all things related to her family. It was here he discovered her little secret called the Dursley's. And what a charming family it turned out they were. While he couldn't get any information from the uncle who tragically died of a cardiac arrest a few months ago – and had clearly never received any type of military training – old neighbors were only too ready to spill the family's dirty little secrets, and what secrets those were. With only a little digging, he was able to pull all her medical records before they stopped at age 11.
Apparently, she had been a 'delusional, ungrateful child, who went out of her way to make life difficult from her poor aunt and uncle who so graciously took her in when her drunk parents died in a car crash'.
Her medical history was lacking extensively. With the required physical completed each year and only one visit to an ophthalmologist when she was five-years-old, her medical history was vastly different than that of her cousins. She had only three visits for emergency treatment over a five year period but with multiple X-rays showing old fractured or broken bones that had never been treated. It was waved off as being an accident-prone child who loved to climb and jump off the stairs but Pierce knew better.
Her comment about not growing up with computers or phones painting a clearer picture.
His doctors looked at many of the injuries and found inconsistencies. There was a greenstick break on her right ulnar with a transverse break farther up. Two separate injuries that happened years apart yet when they examined the x-rays they took of her arm, those injuries were nowhere to be found. Scars to the bone don't just vanish.
He found yearbook pictures of her and she was vastly smaller than her classmates and her obese cousin. So it wasn't just physical abuse she suffered. How interesting that no charges were ever filed.
It seems no one in the neighborhood connected the delinquent Potter brat with the highly respected politician. Looking at the pictures, Pierce was hard pressed to find the similarities as well. But he knew those eyes. There's a fierceness in them that has been mocking him since her name entered his radar all those years ago.
But he knew one of her secrets now and this was only scratching the surface. Her parents hadn't died in a drunken car crash and there was barely any record of her father besides a deed for a house in Godric's Hollow and a marriage certificate to Lily Evans in 1979. Her mother had normal records until her death in 1981. Their deaths were never investigated further.
In their many talks, Rynan had mentioned that Teddy was her godson, his father being one of her parent's best friends. It came up that his parents had been murdered and the familiarity of the situation made him conclude that Lily and James Potter had been murdered as well and it was covered up as a drunken car crash. But why? Did it have to do with Rynan and her secret abilities?
He looked down at the list of living relatives and promised to pay them a visit. He was sure they wouldn't mind answering questions about their niece/cousin.
/
It seems her aunt had a change of heart later in life. From what his agents reported, she cooperated with them, telling dreaded stories of her horrible niece. She told them a lot of what they already knew and made her displeasure of her deceased brother-in-law known. They hadn't realized she was only buying time for her son to escape and disappear. They were still trying to figure that out as the house had been monitored and he and his wife weren't seen exiting.
Petunia Dursley died with a vicious smile on her face, accepting death, knowing her family was safe and rest easy knowing that in the end, she and Lily weren't so different after all.
When the people came asking questions about Rynan, they both knew something wasn't right. Whether it be something related to magic or trouble she found herself in in politics, no one would come to them with good intentions.
His mother had motioned for him and his wife, Isabella, to get refreshments for their guests.
Strange, considering his mother was always the one to handle serving guests, something she had done for as long as he could remember. Pulling Isabella with him to bring out the biscuits while he collects the beverages, Dudley pulled her to the side when they were in the kitchen, opening the supply cupboard door and pushing her in.
"Dudley?" Isabella questioned, her voice confused at what was happening.
He shushed her, hands struggling to reach his back pocket in the cramped space of the supply cupboard. While he was no longer overweight, he was built heavy with the muscle he had gained from boxing. "Izzy, I need you to get my wallet."
She did as asked, reaching into his back pocket and handing the worn leather to him.
Dudley opened it hurriedly, pulling out the one card he had never thought he'd need to touch. He remembered the day it was given to him and the promise of assistance if he ever found himself in trouble.
Rynan had found him after the war, just him, and told him that they didn't have to worry about Voldemort anymore. She didn't go into details and Dudley didn't want to know at the time. He was just relieved that magic wasn't in his life anymore and that his cousin had survived. Their meeting was barely five minutes and she left with a final parting, handing him a card for WWW Weasley's Wizards Wheezes, with instructions that should his life ever be in danger, take the card and state Ickle Dudleykins and he would be taken somewhere safe. That was a name only known to their family and he guessed she still had her sense of humor in making that the passcode.
Small hands grabbed his larger ones and he could feel Isabella's body tremble in the small confines of the cupboard. It was taking everything he had not to lose his composure as well but they had to get out of here. Taking her hands, he brought her in close to him, arms wrapping around her waist and whispering the passcode to take them to safety.
The tugging sensations tore them from their home, arms gripping each other tighter in fear of losing the other. The wet, hard surface of grass met their face a moment later with a loud bang signaling their presence.
Hurried footfalls sounded as the two muggle emptied their stomachs, trying to regain their orientation.
"Merlin's beard, are you alright?" Hands grabbed Dudley's arms, helping him up. "Good Lord, Dudley Dursley?"
Dudley focused on the man helping him up and couldn't really put a name to the face.
"Arthur Weasley. We met briefly when you were a teenager. My sons gave you chocolate…"
Right, now he remembered who the man was. This was the family Rynan stayed with over the summers, her best friend.
The man moved to help Isabella who was shaking and confused, head turning in every direction trying to figure out how they got here from inside their kitchen.
"How 'bout we step into my house for a sip of tea while you tell Molly and I what brings you here." Arthur had a calming hand on Isabella's shoulder, leading her to the Burrow a few dozen yards away.
This had to do with whatever happened with Rynan a few weeks ago. The girl was stubborn and refused to tell them when she was in trouble. They had only heard about the attack from Andromeda who had been informed by Teddy who had been pulled out of Hogwarts for a few days to see to his godmother while she was in the hospital. Even Ron and Hermione had elected not to tell them why they had suddenly dropped Rose and Hugo off before Hermione returned a day later, tight-lipped about everything.
They pieced enough together to paint a picture that Rynan was taking on more than she could handle and now her battle was touching more than just herself. An attack on the Dursley's was no accident; someone was sending a message.
/
Rynan doesn't know how to take the news that her aunt is dead. Unlike her uncle, where she felt a small amount of satisfaction, her aunt, if Dudley was telling the truth, had not only bought time for her only son to escape, knowing she was dead but lied to the people asking for information about her. Petunia could've easily exposed her magic and given everything she knew yet she didn't. She had chosen to protect her hated niece with her dying breath.
It was a sacrifice she was all too familiar with.
/
