Lxv. A TALE AS OLD AS TIME

IAN HIT THE BLUE TRAINING MATS with the force of a reckoning tornado. As his green, determined eyes flickered up to the ceiling, the satisfied golden gaze of his brother, Ace, appeared into his vision. Ace offered a hand and jerked Ian back to his feet. Both of them were sweaty from sparing, and Ian could tell from his brother's rapid rising breath that he needed a break.

"Give me ten," Ian faked a pant, throwing a towel at his brother two years his junior.

    Ace grined. "I'm not even tired. How does it feel to be bested once again?"

    Ian rolled his eyes. Every time they spared, he'd held back the majority of his strength for the sake of fairness. He convinced himself that letting Ace win built confidence and kept him safe, though now, he wanted nothing more than to teach him a lesson.

"Just because you've won in hand to hand combat against me doesn't mean you're ready for the field. The field is dangerous, unpredictable, and you're too reckless."

"I'm fourteen already," Ace groaned. "You were my age when they let you have your first mission. I don't see why—"

"—Mom and dad trusted me to take care of you," Ian huffed. He neglected to mince his words this time. Pain bubbled up inside of him like a furnace heating his body on a cold Winter's day. "Do I need to remind you that they died in the field? They trusted me, and I'm making the judgement calls. You're not ready yet."

You didn't need to be a trained federal agent to recognize the resentment and regret on Ace's face. He stepped back with knitted brows, grabbed his bag, and slung his towel over his shoulder. Without a second word, he left his brother alone with his sulking thoughts in the dim training room.

Ian let out a defeated sigh. How could he explain to his brother that while he was capable, even talented among the other recruits, that there were circumstances out of his control that made the field ten times more dangerous for him than any of the other recruits? How could he ensure that the only family he had left was protected from those that tried to kill him?

    The anger inside of him compounded until his fist collided with the brick walls—creating a dent and causing a haze of dust to erupt.

    "I didn't know you had it in you, Blackwell," a voice lulled over the scene of demolished infrastructure.

    "I see we're completely doing away with formalities, Director." Ian's enunciation mocked the thinly veiled nefarious tone of the Director's.

    "Why do you let Ace win? He might not see it yet, but sooner or later, the kid's gonna realize you're holding back."

    Ian shook out his slightly inconvenienced wrist from the impact. "Our deal was that Ace stays out of this. I find it highly improbable that you'd let your highest asset go."

    He was no longer the innocent, defenseless kid that shook with fear when he first discovered this, what had the Director called it? Talent. He'd been alone with no one to convey the true extent of his terror to. Now he understood this genetic difference was highly valued. He'd grown bold in the face of the Director, and they had a strange quasi-familial tie binding them together despite mutual distaste.

Ian thought the Director represented restriction and lacked transparency in his dealings, whereas Ian was sure the Director saw him as the tangible manifestation of the next generation of agents. The Director was undoubtedly hinged. While bureaucratic power could be stripped with the ease of a well-timed coup, true power, the type that Ian had, could only be stripped with death. Ian knew it. Every time the Director looked at him, it was with objectivity, disdain, and deeply rooted, a single seed of jealousy festering with the soil of the inescapable fact he was your dead friends' son.

"It's time for your daily training," the Director shifted.

"You mean torture," was the blatant response.

The Director drummed his fingers along that goddamn clipboard, the one that Ian swore he was going to break one day. "You know the deal. Be complicit, and Ace stays out of this."

Ian clenched his jaw. "It's been what, three years? When will your shit-ass scientists finally have enough information?"

"This is for your own good, to control it—"

"—My strength is something I am clearly capable of controlling, otherwise your pretentious mouth would be ripped from your face."

The SWAT agents would be here soon. Ian always threatened with verbal but empty assaults; it was a cyclical process, though he hadn't done anything yet for fear of either a rain of bullets gunning him down or the prospect of hurting the very person it was his life's goal to protect. A fear that, at its core, suspected Ace had the same talents he did. He'd protect Ace for as long as he could. If that meant tolerating the Director for the meantime, he'd gladly acquiesce to a position of martyrdoom.

Systematically as the second hand of the clock ticked past 9:30, the file of agents lined up to block the door, and they barricaded him in a circle in menacingly haunting perfection. Ian always thought this was frustratingly overdramatic. Why did he have to get his ass kicked in such a public manner? They all wore armour, and the ones stepping forward had batons and those on the outside had deadly, precautionary weapons. The machine guns were starting to scare him a lot less now with time.

"Today is just a simple training session. Use the entirety of your force," the Director instructed. "Don't hold back."

"I don't want to hurt anyone, though I suppose I could pretend they're you."

"Truly comical. Now start."

~

    SEVEN INJURED AGENTS, four broken batons, and one black eye later, Ian found himself passed out in the clinical care wing of the agency. Blood was either draining out of him or feeding into him—he couldn't tell at this point—but he wouldn't put it past the Director to still run these tedious tests as he was paralyzed and unable to refuse. This had been Ian's entire life since he was thirteen.

    The Director was intelligent. He was careful in pushing Ian far enough to run extensive tests, but not yet far enough to cause him any permanent damage. That was, until he met the intelligence's worst enemy: impatience.

    Ian hobbled over to the interrogation room where the Director had called him to. This wasn't his first interrogation, but by the way the nurses yanked him out of bed despite being visually injured, he could tell the issue was pressing. Ian ran his hand against the brick wall in order to steady himself.

    "What do you want old man?" Ian grimaced and held his surely bruised abdomen.

    The Director's gaze fixated on the man locked in the interrogation room on the other side of the one-way mirror. The man had a stoic green gaze similar to his own. Ian had seen other prisoners before, but this man wasn't afraid. He'd accepted the sentence brought on to him by the most clandestine agency in the world.

    "Well he's clearly dangerous, otherwise you wouldn't have brought me in," Ian stated. "What did he do? Murder? Terrorism?"

    The Director was silent and focused. His eyes narrowed. "Come into the room with me. I want him to see your face."

    Ian stiffened. He'd long strayed away from his initial adoration of the CIA, and now, whenever answers were withheld, he felt burning contempt for stringent protocol. It's only now he noticed that it was just the Director and him in with the inmate. Usually, there would be at least three other agents watching over the situation. The two walked into the interrogation room.

    The man was quiet, not looking up. The Director took a seat in front of the cuffed man while Ian stood, hands crossed, and leaned against the door.

    "Is your name Ian?" The man asked. He opted to ignore the Director.

    Ian flinched. "How did you know?"

    The man smiled. "The Director's talked a lot about you."

    "This is your last chance, David," the Director interrupted. "You will leave us no choice otherwise."

    Last chance to do what? Who is he? Ian thought.

    He didn't know it then, but David's last name was Snow.

Ian: "Now listen carefully, my Darling."

Octavia: "So you knew my father?"

Ian: "All too well."

Sophie: "Any theories?"