The Hunters and the Prey - Chapter Thirty
Author: Milady Dragon
Phil stood outside the cell holding Werner von Strucker, with Ianto and Stephen flanking him, staring down at the young man who'd revealed his former self in front of the Quorum.
Von Strucker stared back, head straight, not backing down from the Void Wizard's scrutiny. While the young man wasn't a Wizard, he was a prisoner of the Quorum so, instead of taking him to the jail in the heart of the city, he was being held there pending interrogation. He'd broken Wizard law, and Baroness Eirlys had gladly let the Guild take care of the prisoner. Setting foot within the Quorum while it was in session and when not a Wizard was strictly forbidden – unless it was a special circumstance, such as to give evidence in an inquiry, and was always at the discretion of the Grand Masters – so von Strucker faced quite a long time in his cell.
Still, they had to know who had let him into the Quorum, since only Wizards could get into the chamber unless invited. Someone had to have let him in, and that someone was obviously part of Hydra, which was inferred by the attempt to discredit Phil himself.
It was just getting him to admit to anything.
Phil just stared, waiting to see if the young man would blink first. He did, although it took several heartbeats for him to do so. Phil was impressed; he'd perfected this particular stare back during his Dark One days, and not a lot of people could stand up to it for long.
He could sense Lola's tension through their bond, but he didn't dare reach down and touch her, to get her to relax. She sat next to him, body still, as if waiting for him to signal her to attack. Not that he would, but he figured she most likely looked as intimidating as Phil himself did.
"Are you just going to stand there?" von Strucker finally demanded.
"I thought I might," Phil answered pleasantly.
That comment had Lola relaxing just a fraction, although she still sat at attention. Her mental presence was actually giggling. It made it a little harder for Phil to keep the smile from his face.
"I can do this all day," the Void Wizard continued. "I do hope you don't have anything else planned."
Von Strucker began to move restlessly, pacing back and forth, his bare feet slapping the stone of the floor. He pushed his blond hair out of his eyes as he paced, a nervous, reflexive gesture. It was apparent he was someone who didn't like to be still for too long, but he was also nervous, faced with the man who'd been responsible for the death of his father and who had, with only three companions, taken down his entire castle and the city surrounding it.
"Are you going to torture me?" the young man – no, the boy – demanded. "Kill me, like you killed my father?"
The very idea sickened Phil, but he forced the illness down and held onto his blank façade. Yes, this was the son of King Wilhelm, who'd tortured and murdered Wizard children in his quest for power, but the child wasn't the guilty one. He'd been used by Hydra, the Wizard was sure of it, and didn't deserve what his father had gotten.
"I don't do that anymore. Especially to innocents."
Von Strucker darted toward the cell door, his fists pounding on the bars hard enough to bruise. "My father was innocent, and you murdered him and his court!"
"None of those people were innocent," Phil pointed out calmly. "What they were doing to magical children was obscene, and had to be stopped."
"You lie!" von Strucker screamed. "You came and butchered them!"
That wasn't exactly true, there hadn't been any butchering involved, but Phil, along with Marcus, Clint, and Natasha, had burned out the nest and had salted the ground behind them. No one involved with the King's vile schemes had been left untouched. Buda-Pest had eventually recovered, and from what he'd since learned, the place had become a much better kingdom to live in, without the taint of von Strucker's evil left upon it.
Phil had to wonder just where young Werner had been during that particular mission. Where his father had hidden him, as there hadn't been any mention of a son. He wanted to ask, but he didn't dare. He didn't dare show any sort of caring, even though his heart was going out to this poor, wounded child who had been so very badly affected by what Phil and his friends had done, all those years ago.
"Mister von Strucker," Phil said, "what's happened is in the past. You heard the testimony of those two young Wizards, and it's your own decision not to believe them. What we need to speak to you about now is how you got into the Quorum chamber without magic of your own."
The young man stepped back from the bars and, straightening his back, only said, "Hail Hydra!" in a loud, proud voice.
"You know Hydra was only using you, right?" Stephen pointed out. "The moment you revealed yourself, you weren't getting out of the Quorum chamber under your own power, even if your accusations had been taken into consideration."
"Which they weren't," Ianto added. "Phil Coulson is now our newest Grand Master, despite your attempt to ruin him."
"That's not possible!" von Strucker shouted. He grasped the bars, shaking them as if his strength could rattle them. "They promised me – "
"What, Werner?" Phil took a single step forward. "What did Hydra promise you in order to get you to attempt to wreck my reputation among my fellow Wizards?"
Von Strucker narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
Phil wasn't surprised by that. Because it wasn't going to be that easy.
"Let me see if I can guess." Phil regarded the infuriated boy. Von Strucker's face was pale, two spots of high color in his cheeks showing just how angry he was at his situation. His dark eyes were glittering almost as if he was running a fever. He did not look well at all, and the Wizard's heart went out to him once more. He couldn't help but hope they could somehow rehabilitate the youngster, but he knew it would be a long process. "I think they promised you revenge on me for your father's death. They promised you a place within Hydra, even though you aren't a Wizard."
He could tell his suppositions were correct, but then those were the obvious guesses. Revenge would have been the prime motivating factor behind von Strucker's agreement to help Hydra; he'd most likely been dreaming about it for years, even when the news that the Dark One had been killed had gotten around. When Hydra had approached him, it must have been like all his fantasies had come true. It was no wonder he'd jumped at the chance to take down the man who had to have been the stuff of nightmares.
Phil liked to think that, if he'd known that King Wolfgang had had a son, he'd have done things differently. However, he wasn't so certain of that. The elder von Strucker had needed to be stopped, and wrecking his ability to regain power had been the only way to go about that.
So, that was what they'd done.
Without realizing there would be collateral damage. Although, perhaps they should have.
"There's something else, though," Ianto mused.
Phil was certain he was correct.
"It's not money," the Void Wizard said. "That's just too cliché and I doubt Hydra would even have offered it. No, I'm guessing it's something personal." He looked at the young man shrewdly. "No matter what it is, you'll never be getting it."
"You can't keep me in here! I didn't do anything wrong!"
"But you did," Stephen said. "You broke Wizard Guild laws when you were let into the Quorum chamber during session."
"He's right," Phil added. "Only Wizards are allowed inside the chamber during a Quorum." That wasn't exactly true, there were exceptions, but he didn't believe that needed to be stated simply because the boy hadn't been one of those exceptions. "I'm not certain what Hydra told you would happen once you dropped your little accusation into our midst, but I'm certain it didn't have anything to do with spending a significant period of time in this dungeon, your only company a Hydra member who may or may not be a manipulative bastard who tried to get my daughter to release him."
Then he cocked his head, looking closely at von Strucker. He could tell, just the right words would tip him over the edge.
And he thought he might know what that would be.
"They have lied to you. Repeatedly. They have shown absolutely no regard to your safety. They set you on this path, but they didn't have your back, which I'm certain they promised they would. And whatever it was that they told you you would have, that was a lie as well. You're not going to get anything from Hydra."
"Yet," Ianto picked up the thread, "you're being loyal to whomever it was who invited you into the Quorum for the express purpose of discrediting Grand Master Phil Coulson. Which didn't work. In fact, it simply strengthened his position."
"Didn't you even consider there might be a witness or two that might discredit your own testimony?" Stephen pressed. "We found two, in fact."
Phil had thanked the Great Wizard for managing to locate Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, and for getting them into the Quorum as witnesses to the actions at Buda-Pest. He'd made a promise to himself to find other survivors, to see how they were coping as well. He was even allowing Pepper to talk him into accepting Wanda as his Novice, which hadn't seemed like something he'd ever do, not with his past.
But, perhaps, he was the best person to teach young Void Wizards. After all, what he'd gone through had scarred him for life, and he could be an influence in preventing that from ever happening again. Mistress Suzie had tried, but he hadn't listened. However, Phil could call on his own experience as a teaching tool.
It was a heady thought, coming to him as he stood in front of the cell holding the son of the man who'd done his best to corrupt young Wizards and steal their magic in order to strengthen his power base. There were possibly even more crimes against magical children out there that Phil and Clint and his friends could prevent. They simply had to find them out and take the steps needed to stop such a thing from ever happening again.
And, perhaps, it was time to start with this young man, even though he wasn't a Wizard himself.
"Werner," he pled, "Hydra has thrown you to the wolves. They don't care about you. Let us help you. We won't abandon you like they did. Please, tell us who betrayed you. I know you don't trust me, which I completely understand, but these two," he motioned to Ianto and Stephen, "are good men and will do whatever they can to help you. I'll even leave the room if you want me to. Just, please… we want to get you out of the mess Hydra's gotten you into."
"He's right," Ianto agreed. "You've just been Hydra's puppet in all this. Think about it, and what you want to do about it."
Stephen stepped up beside Phil, his face earnest. "What you've been through… we can't even imagine. Losing your father the way you did…yes, he was an evil man, but he was your father, and you loved him." He put a hand on Phil's shoulder. "We're not even going to trivialize losing your father. It was a terrible thing. But he was also guilty of so many crimes that the entire Guild would have gone after him if we had been aware of what he was doing to those poor children. What Grand Master Phil did…we're not going to excuse it, either. He isn't exactly innocent in all this, but he also knows that he's being punished as well, even if you can't understand it yet."
"It's true." Phil had accepted that his longevity was a consequence of his actions as the Dark One, that the Void was passing sentence on him for all the evil he'd done in his past. "While you might not think so, the Void handles its Wizard's infractions, and metes out its own forms of punishment. I'm not sorry for what I did at Buda-Pest, because of all the blood that was on your father's hands, but I am sorry for what my actions have done to you."
Everything he said was true. Phil would never apologize for razing Buda-Pest to the ground; it was well-deserved, for everything that King Wolfgang and his cronies had done to so many innocent children. He had no idea how many had died before he'd even heard about it and had gone to Marcus about the situation, but it had to have been dozens. Wanda and Pietro would have been next if he hadn't decided to go in and destroy King Wolfgang and his vile experiments.
He could see that their words were making an impact. Von Strucker looked uncertain; he was chewing his lip, his eyes haunted. "I will never forgive you."
"I understand." He did. He was responsible for taking this boy's father from him. He'd make the same choice all over again, if it meant saving lives. However, if that did happen, he would take more care with any innocent lives on the other side as well, to keep this sort of thing from ever occurring again. They'd had no idea that Wolfgang von Strucker had even had a son, but then they hadn't exactly checked, either. "I'm responsible for making you so vulnerable that Hydra could prey on you. That's on me, and there isn't a thing I can do to change what's happened."
"I…" Werner von Strucker's expression was confused and it took all Phil had not to open that cell and pull the young man into a hug, because he had the distinct impression he hadn't gotten a lot of those in his life.
"I'll leave and let you speak with Grand Masters Ianto and Stephen. That might make it easier on you, if I'm not here."
With that, Phil left the cells, passing by Grant Ward without a single word. Ward, however, shouted at him as he strode by, reiterating his claim that he'd speak to Daisy if she came to see him, but to no one else, and that he had secrets to share about Hydra…but only to Daisy.
Like Phil was ever going to agree to that.
Lola loped along beside him, offering him her support and comfort, which the Wizard appreciated. She would always be there for him; she'd seen him through the worst moments in his life, had stayed with him even at his darkest, accepting him no matter what. It hit him then, as they were moving up the stairs, that as long as he was alive, he wouldn't be alone; Lola would be with him, tied to him through their emotional link, and he was so very grateful that she'd picked up to be her Wizard.
He hoped that Ianto and Stephen could get that poor young man to talk. They really needed to know who'd let him into the Quorum. It would give them the first step in cleaning house.
The Quorum chamber was empty this time of the day, so Phil took a seat in the Head of Order section for the United Kingdom, not wanting to take that ostentatious throne he'd have to sit in during the actual Quorum until he actually had to. Lola curled up on the bench next to him, resting her head in his lap, humming in contentment when he began to stroke down her neck.
The Wizard sat in the quiet chamber, letting his mind drift, and simply enjoyed the peace while he waited for whatever Ianto and Stephen could discover from that traumatized young man, the boy he, himself, was responsible for putting him on the path he'd taken for revenge.
He knew the peace wouldn't last.