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Almosts Lost to Time
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Fury sat behind his desk, his eye studying his guest intently. She'd been gone a few months and only just returned. He was starting to get the feeling they were fighting two different battles. Was she only in this to save Barnes? Would she continue the fight once he was rescued or killed? If he knew one thing about Rynan Potter, it was that she held more cards then she had shared.
"Why are you putting so much effort into finding him?"
"No one deserves what has been done to him. His body, his mind, his action, his life…it's all been taken from him." Rynan stared at the director, daring him to contradict her.
"While that's true, he has a lot of important people's blood on his hands. More than most people I know. And if you haven't noticed, I employ assassins and spies," he raised his one eyebrow, daring her to object.
She searched his face, looking for any indication that they could compromise.
"You really won't give him a chance; you'll kill him on sight?"
Fury sighed as he turned from his mostly empty desk. It was never easy to make these decisions but you just couldn't save everyone. He knew this and he was damn sure Potter knew this as well, she was just too stubborn to admit it!
"He is a liability that SHIELD cannot afford. He has a specific skill set designed for one purpose. He can't be trusted with anyone."
"And those two years he spent with me mean nothing!? He was fine, healing even!" Her hand itched to jinx the infuriating director. "We just need…our current technology can't help him. If we could find how HYDRA programmed him, we could –."
"And let that ability fall into someone else's hands? You may be willing to take that risk Potter but I'm not. My duty is to protect the people of Earth. Letting technology like that surface will do nothing but incite others to follow in HYDRA's path."
"He sacrificed everything for this country! And it's just going to turn its' back on him?! 'No man left behind' what a load of crock shit." Her anger got the best of her as the mug on his desk exploded.
She moved away from the desk in shock. She hadn't lost control like that in a long time. Getting this emotional wasn't going to help anyone, especially James. Weary eyes darted to observe the director's reaction. To his credit, he barely reacted to the display of magic.
"Look, I know you care for Barnes. The most I can give you is that we'll do everything we can to bring him in alive but I will not risk my men's lives to do so." Fury's hand withdrew from his concealed pistol when Rynan backed away. He was still adjusting to the fact that wizards and witches existed and the display of power did nothing to reassure him of their promised threat level. "The world thinks he died a hero, don't take that from him."
Rynan couldn't believe what she had just heard, he did not just say that. Her heart beating erratically in her chest and her body shaking in rage, Rynan knew it was time to leave. "It's clear to me this is going nowhere. Director." With the stiff dismissal, Rynan stormed out of his office, trying not to display just how angry she truly was.
She made it to the elevator when she had to let it out. That man was just so infuriating! Her fist stung but it was a good distraction, the physical pain verse the mental pain she was feeling.
A ding surprised her. Of course, it was the elevator. The door opened slowly, did they always move that slow?
A surprised Clint stepped out of the elevator. "Potter? Finally back from the motherland and already meeting Director Fury?"
She enjoyed Clint; he was a good man with honour and a kind soul. Unlike other people she was acquainted with.
"I'm sorry but I can't stay here a minute longer when your director is okay sentencing an innocent person to death. Goodbye Barton."
The doors shut before Clint could even ask what was wrong. Honestly, this was why he needed Natasha. She would know exactly what was going on. Fortunately, he was one of the best SHIELD agents for a reason. Fury and Potter had discussed Barnes and she didn't like the answer Fury provided; boom, question answered!
"'Thanks for the talk Clint, you've been so helpful!' 'Oh, no problem. Always here to help.'"
No one said you had to be sane to be an agent, just efficient.
/
"Hello?" Rynan answered her phone, pausing her conversation with Sam.
Sam narrowed his eyes as he watched her face change and knew whatever was being said on the other end, wasn't making his friend happy.
"I'll be there…Well, you tell him I don't give a flying fuck what he thinks right now." Rynan angrily stated to the person on the other end of her phone call, causing Sam's eyebrows to rise and his mouth to open in shock. Rynan rarely cussed and he could practically see the steam rising off her.
Rynan was one of his tougher veterans. He had been able to pull her to his weekly meetings but she rarely opened up, preferring to sit back and listen to struggles and successes of others. He tried to get her to open up one-on-one but there was a fine line between counselor and friend and he couldn't continue being her friend if he took on that role. Because of this, he had rarely seen her angry. Pissed off and annoyed, yes, but downright angry, he'd never seen that.
Gripping her phone tightly, Rynan took a deep breath before gathering her bag. "Sorry, Sam. I've gotta run."
"No, no," he stood from his chair, moving to intercept her, "Not till you tell me what's got you so worked up. I've never seen you like this."
She hadn't been right the last few weeks. She had gone home to England and she seemed fine, if not a little melancholy when she came back. But she had been unhinged, stressed out, the past couple weeks. He could tell that something was bothering her.
Rynan paused, turning her tired green eyes into his concerned brown ones. She hesitated. Sam was her friend and he didn't deserve the crap that came with knowing her. She wouldn't bring anyone else into her mess.
"I-I can't Sam. There's just things you can't know, things you don't want to know."
"Are you in danger?"
"No," she lied right through her teeth.
"Are you part of something dangerous?"
"No," she was a horrible friend she thought as she lied to him again.
She moved to walk away but was stopped by a tight grip on her wrist.
"You'd tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn't you?"
And here came the guilt. She didn't deserve Sam as a friend. He was too kind. He was better than she could ever be and here he was worrying about a train wreck like her. So she did what she had to do, put on her most believable smile and lied.
"Of course I would." He didn't look convinced but he dropped it, for which she was grateful. "I'll see you next week?"
She left him with a wave and her stomach rolling with what had happened in the last few minutes.
/
Walking into the interrogation building, she passed Natasha who appeared to be waiting for her.
"Telling him would put him in more danger."
Like always, she inevitably knew what was going on.
"I know that but it's not fair to him. He thinks I'm lying and blowing him off." Rynan huffed as she strode down the hall, Natasha motioning what door to go through.
"And that's the truth. You came into this ready to do anything. You can't make these kind of attachments, Potter."
She paused with her hand on the knob, turning to open the door. "How do you do it? How do you stay detached?"
Natasha didn't take long to answer. It was a rather easy question for her to answer.
"It's easy not to form attachments when the other person doesn't know the real you." She smirked, raising an eyebrow almost challengingly.
Rynan looked away, pushing the door open and coming face to face with the reason for her visit and previous anger.
"Director," she nodded curtly before focusing on the sole prisoner behind the glass window.
"Potter," Fury responded, coming to stand next to her as they both examined their prisoner.
He had clearly gotten her message. His shoulders were tense and he looked ready for an argument but that could also be due to his recent failure. They had three prisoners but two were able to kill themselves before they could be interrogated. Natasha had managed to knock out the third one before he could follow his comrades.
The man in front of them had gone through a thorough check and they had found three different capsules in his body filled with poison. That just showed the lengths these HYDRA agents are willing to go to keep their secret.
"How long has he been in there?" she asked without looking away from the HYDRA agent.
"He came out of observation less than five hours ago. The other two died around 08:00 this morning."
Rynan leaned forward to grip the underside of the window frame, trying to will away her frustration.
"Do you know the difficulty - how hard it was - getting those three here? Alive?!"
Natasha came up from behind the two, always playing the mediator between them, "We searched them in all the obvious spots and found nothing. This guy," she nodded to the HYDRA agent, "he spent two hours in surgery for us to remove the capsules."
Rynan listened, knowing everyone had done everything they could to keep these men alive. But it was difficult to achieve when they were so adamant to give up their lives. They should commend them on their dedication if it wasn't so bloody irritating.
After a long pause, she came to a conclusion, "I want to talk to him."
Natasha raised an eyebrow with her smug, I-told-you-so, smile crossing her face as she stared at Fury whose face, instead, went blank in what Rynan could only describe as aggravation at her very existence.
"I told you she'd want a go."
The small observation room narrowed down to just the three of them as Fury sized up Rynan, debating if she could really do what she thought she could. They may not see eye to eye but he'd seen her pull off feats only some of his best could. She exposed HYDRA just like she said she could and survived an attack by the Winter Soldier.
"You have 15 minutes." That was all he would give her. His interrogators hadn't had any luck so far so she was the agent's last chance at leniency before he sent in the big guns.
Rynan stepped closer to him, looking straight into his one eye, not feeling intimidated at all despite the almost foot difference between them.
"15 minutes and I need all cameras and recording devices turned off. I don't want what I'm about to do to go on record."
Fury looked to Natasha who only shrugged, smirk still present. "Play nice."
It was one fight he would have to lose but it wasn't a total loss. He would finally get to see her abilities firsthand. He only knew what she had parted with and what Natasha had parted with in her analysis of the woman. She was a fighter, had been since before she popped up in the political system more than a decade ago. She was a powerful ally, that he was willing to admit, but just how powerful was she?
Fury moved to the controls and turned them off under Rynan's careful observation. Once she saw everything was the way she wanted it, she exited the room and the two members of SHIELD watched her enter the interrogation room.
Rynan walked the short distance to the other room, taking a deep breath to calm her mind before she entered. Her skin was itching with anticipation and her heart was about ready to beat out of her chest. Arguing with Fury was easiest for her, she had been doing it since she met the man. It was easy to act like she knew what she was doing but in truth, she hadn't used Mind Magic in years. She'd had no need.
But now? Merlin, what if she messed up? What if she broke his mind before she could get the needed information?
Steeling herself and straightening her back, Rynan threw open the door and strode in, eyes never leaving her victim even when the pungent odor of blood and sweat assaulted her senses.
The man's eyes shot up, startled at the sudden interruption before a maniacal smile stretched across his face and he began to laugh and laugh and laugh. The sound echoing against the stone walls.
"This is who they send? A little girl," the man managed to spit out through his swollen mouth. It seemed SHIELD had had to pull more than one molar. Interesting. Rynan didn't much care at the moment.
She kept moving forward, ignoring the laughter, until she was standing across from him at the table.
"Do your worst." His eyes lit up as he took in Rynan, challenging her, believing he had nothing to fear. His bloody smile doing nothing to Rynan but make him appear deranged. She had faced scarier people than him. Having Bellatrix Lestrange after you for a few years really numbed one to psychos.
She blocked out the dimly lit room. Ignored the window behind her. Didn't feel the table under her palms.
The only thing she focused on was the man in front of her, not his body, not his injuries, but his eyes. The eyes that would lead her into his mind and reveal his secrets to her.
The man met her gaze, eyes alit almost daring her to look away first. She pulled at her magic, dredging up her anger and fear and helplessness to fuel the spell forward. She felt the magic pull forth and began to shape it, control it. She needed to do this right. Barging into his mind runs the risk of him losing his sanity before she could get the information she needed.
The man in front of her began to fidget, shifting his eyes away and back before focusing on her face as she continued to say and do nothing. This wasn't what he had been expecting. Violence and pain and threats…those he was used to but this? He had no idea what she was playing at. It made him weary, it made him sweat.
Feeling as good as she ever would considering the situation, Rynan struck her hand forward, gripping the back of the man's head by his hair and whispered, "Legilimens."
Focus on what you want. Clear your mind.
Rynan chanted as she was thrust into his mind and memories came flying at her from all directions.
Focus on HYDRA.
The flashes began to slow and Rynan took a deep breath as she manipulated her magic to pull the memories she wanted. Unlike the last time she did this wandlessly, she didn't have the wild emotion coursing through her, fueling her magic. It was working though. Voices, missions, people…the memories were coming forward.
She started to get pushback, like the man - Biggs - was trying to fight her off. He had a strong mind for a muggle. HYDRA put all their members through some kind of mental training to resist torture. This must be a result of that.
It didn't matter to her. Her magic pushed back against his attempts to stop her. Was this what Snape felt like when he was teaching her Occlumency? The feeble attempts at fighting him off?
Biggs didn't spend much time in America, his missions taking him mainly to South America but he had received orders and on an occasion or two worked with agents based in DC, confirming her suspicions that HYDRA was operating a base in the capital. She dug at those memories, pulling them from the recesses of his mind, pushing past the death and torture and how he reveled in all his kills. She felt nauseous and wanted to withdrawal from his twisted mind but she was here for reason and she would suffer this brief torture to get this information.
Conversations…whispers…rumors…Biggs heard all of them about the Winter Soldier. They had been circulating for years and the last rumor he had heard was that the Winter Soldier had been put on ice indefinitely because the handlers were worried that he would defect because he had failed to kill his target and had gone rogue. There were even whispers that he had killed five agents when they tried to contain him.
Rynan fought off a grin when she came across that particular memory. The fear HYDRA had at losing control of James was well founded and once he regained his memory, every last one of these waste of space was going to wish they had never heard the name HYDRA.
The spell was losing power, her magic slipping from the strain of concentrating it for so long. She just needed to find one more memory and she would be done with him. She needed to see who was stationed in the US.
Come on.
She wanted it to be easy. To see a person and recognize them. To end this now.
…She didn't get her wish. She didn't recognize any of the men and they only used codenames. The best she could do was give the description to Fury and have him run them through their database.
Pulling out was rough. The strain on her mind and magic was great. There was a reason only the strongest witches and wizards could be legilimens. It required great skill and control. Through her panting, Rynan was happy to see that the man wasn't a complete vegetable. Fury would find it much easier to get information out of him now.
She picked herself up, shot the man struggling to get up from the floor a glare and turned her attention to the window behind her.
"He's all yours," she drawled out, wondering what the two thought she had done to the man. She had only ever been subjected to legilimency, so she never saw what it looked like to an outsider.
Natasha was there in a second, pulling Biggs back into the chair roughly and speaking harshly when the door shut behind Rynan. The last thing Rynan heard was screaming.
Fury was waiting for her in the hallway, his black trench coat pushed back as he slid his hands into his pants pockets. Even with his one eye, Rynan could tell the man was riveted by what she had done.
"Well color me impressed. I assume you got the information you were looking for?" Fury waited for her to meet him before making their way to his office to speak privately.
"Not as specific as I had hoped but we can work with it."
/
"Rynan!"
She paused on her way out of the Triskelion, turning to the voice calling out to her. Not many people here knew her or her name and she didn't recognize the voice immediately.
A kind face greeted her and she finally put a name to the voice, feeling sheepish that she had forgotten.
"Alexander," she greeted with a smile. They hadn't had many interactions since their shaky introduction but she had spoken to him on a few occasions. She liked the man.
He was quick and he reminded her of Remus as he had that fierceness about him but in a protecting sort of way. He seemed like a less violent, more approachable, version of Fury.
"What brings you to the Triskelion?" Alexander inquired as he fell into step with Rynan.
She shared a smile with him, "I was in a meeting with Fury. We acquired new information about the HYDRA base here in DC."
Alexander nodded in understanding. "Ah yes, I heard that your team had captured three suspected HYDRA agents alive. That was pretty impressive considering the capture rate is close to 13%."
Rynan grimaced at the reminder. "We didn't get off that easy." She rubbed her shoulder which had been dislocated in the struggle. A few numbing potions and popping it back in and she was good but it was a reminder that the mission could've gone way worse.
"How's your godson? He made quite a mess last time he was here, I hear."
They shared a laugh, Rynan's more forced as she remembered the bill Fury had hit her with. It wasn't as bad as it could've been, Natasha and Clint taking the brunt of the blame for instigating the game in the first place.
"Teddy's back in school giving me a few months of peace and quiet." Rynan waved for a taxi, hiking up the collar of her jacket as a particularly cold burst of air swept by them. "Nat has officially been banned from babysitting duty."
A taxi pulled up and Rynan bid the Undersecretary goodbye as she opened the car door.
"Swing by my office tomorrow. I'd love to catch up with you." Alexander invited, wind blowing his hair to the side.
Thinking about it for a moment, Rynan agreed.
Pierce watched the taxi drive away, eyes narrowed as he wondered what the agent had given away. He would have to pay the man a visit to remind him who he swore his allegiance to.
Letting the smile slide off his face, the blonde turned and walked with purpose back inside the Triskelion. He had work to do.
/
"I'm sorry Rynan, I've tried to give you your space but I can't hold my tongue anymore." Sam cornered her after their next VA meeting. "You're half here like your mind is a thousand miles away. You're exhausted. And the only people I see as jumpy as you, they've just returned from war."
Sam took a step back to appear less threatening. His softened his voice, worry tinging every word.
"You told me you'd tell me if you were in trouble."
Rynan ran a hand through her hair, darting her eyes from Sam to the exit, debating on the merit of making a run for it. Deciding against it, Rynan turned her full attention to her friend. He deserved to know how dangerous her life was so he could decide if he wanted to make a run for it.
The room was empty, everyone having left after mingling for a bit. Sam had clearly been planning this for a while, Rynan thought with a mental smile.
She pulled a chair up, motioning for her friend to sit while she grabbed another. This was a discussion both of them needed to be seated for.
She pushed her glasses up from where they had slipped, resisting the urge to rub her faded scar. A brief glimpse of another scar had her taking a deep breath. No lies between friends.
"When I first met you, you knew I'd seen war and while it's true, s'not the reason I'm in the states. A few years ago, I ran into trouble and someone – I can't tell you who – put a hit on me. I barely escaped." It was a condensed version but he didn't need the full story there.
Sam's eyes widened fractionally, either in response to her opening up or at the revelation that someone had tried to kill her. He crossed his muscular arms and Rynan observed his bicep and forearm muscles flexing and relaxing as he struggled to remain silent.
"This next part you have to understand, I didn't make it on a whim." It didn't feel right discussing James to a stranger, someone who had no idea who he was, what he was like. But at the same time, didn't hold the bias of knowing the actions of the Winter Soldier. "There was this man, James, who was in a bad place and I took him in. I was helping him like you help all these people. We were fine for years and he was making such good progress."
Sam felt a smile creep across his face as her face began to light up, tired lines disappearing and light creeping back into her eyes.
"He was integrated back into the public, we had control of his nightmares, and he was…he was thriving! James was brilliant and Teddy loved him –."
She cut herself off as if realizing she might've said too much. The clock in the room tick-tick-ticking as Sam waited for her to continue. She needed to move in her own time and he'd be patient and let her.
"…but that was ripped away from him. The people who tried to kill me took him and brainwashed him into becoming their weapon. They make him do things, terrible things and he doesn't even know it!" The spark that had lit up her eyes morphed into a fire as rage took over, hatred seeping into her voice as she spilled her secrets.
"The last few months I've been following new leads but I feel like I'm in an endless cycle. That every time I get closer, he just gets further and further away! I know I'll find him but I'm scared that I'll be too late; that he'll be too far gone."
There, her darkest secret. She had no doubt that she would find and rescue James but there was no telling what sick experiments HYDRA had done and would do until then. There was a chance that that little piece of James that had survived, the piece that saved her life, had been removed by any means necessary. She was afraid that when she found him again, the best thing she could do for him would be to put him down.
Rynan was broken out of her dark thoughts when a soft, callused hand rubbed against her closed ones, coaxing them apart as the thumb brushed against the outside of her right hand. She stared at the appendage in amazement, all previous thoughts forgotten. When was the last time she had allowed someone to touch her so gently? The last time she opened herself up to someone, not Ron or Hermione?
His voice broke her from her trace, drawing her eyes back to his. His first words not prying into the trouble she was in but seeing the truth in what was haunting her, "If you've spent so much time looking for this guy, you must care for him a lot."
And she did. She wouldn't deny that. She had cared for James like she cares for Weasley's. The three of them had become a family. It was hard to explain when even she didn't understand her feelings all that much.
Have you ever felt that way about someone?" She wasn't sure why she was asking other than to not feel so alone.
Sam leaned back as he took his time to answer her question.
"My wingman, Riley. I told ya a few stories about him; we were close. After he died, I didn't really see a point in fighting anymore."
And she did remember Riley. The first day they met, Sam had talked about Riley and she Fred. The two of them had been closer than brothers, a bond that went beyond simple duty and friendship.
But there was a difference between them and she wasn't sure who had it worse: her, who was plagued with all these possibilities and uncertainty or Sam, who knew he would never see Riley ever again.
"I know the pain of loss, that's nothing new. But this isn't something I've felt before. It's been months since our last lead." She steadied her hand by pushing it through her hair.
She missed Sam's gaze as she dropped her head, hands locking behind her neck. He was pulling at what he had learned tonight and what he knew of Rynan. The information she had parted with wasn't much but he gathered that it was dangerous. Pulling at his years in the Air Force as a pararescue, he knew sometimes the best and safest solution was always the most direct one.
"You said it yourself, you don't know what this James is like now. Worrying about it won't accomplish anything as all you're doing is making these people cautious. You need to give 'em space, make 'em think they're on the offensive now."
"Lure them out with false security?" Was that something they could afford? HYDRA had already proved they were multiple steps ahead of them. Could they let off the pressure and risk another Oxley?
Sam shrugged, mentally debating if he was ready to get back in the game. There was no way he was going to let Rynan continue this alone. "Something like that."
A light bulb went off in Rynan's mind for a different reason. She had a new plan, something she would need to convey to Fury, that would limit the casualties down to one: herself.
Pushing up from her chair, she moved excitedly to her friend, "Do I pay you, Sam? You should be getting a raise."
"A pretty lady accompanying me for a meal is payment enough," he flirted but blushed when she bent to give him a kiss on the cheek.
"See you Friday?"
"Same time and place," he called from his seated position, watching her dash out of the building.
/
With all the issues going on with FF and AO3, I waited a bit to post this. The next chapter will be shorter and hopefully up by next week. After that is the exciting stuff most of you have been waiting for!
Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews!