Washington, D.C., the top floor of the Triskelion.
At three in the morning, the main lights in the director's office were off. Only a high-intensity shadowless desk lamp above the desk remained lit. Its stark white beam shone straight down onto the desktop, illuminating every tiny speck of dust suspended in the air.
Lynn reclined in the spacious leather interrogation chair. The leather still smelled of the previous occupant's cold sweat, mingling with the scorched bitterness of cheap black coffee that perpetually lingered in the room and assailing his nostrils.
Coulson stood beside him, expressionless, and pressed the last cold metal electrode pad onto Lynn's temple. Eight monitoring probes on his wrists, chest, and carotid arteries connected through a tangle of black cables to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s latest multidimensional biometric lie detector on the desk.
"Sir, the equipment is connected." Coulson stepped back into the shadows.
Behind the desk, Nick Fury rested his chin on his interlaced hands. His sole remaining eye was hidden in the backlit darkness, fixed on Lynn like a lone wolf assessing how lethal its prey might be.
Silence.
Only the beeping of the green waveform pulsing on the lie detector's screen echoed through the room.
Lynn shifted in his seat, letting the metal restraints around his wrists clink softly. Meeting Fury's oppressive gaze, he gave a helpless quirk of his lips. "Sir, if possible, I'd like a cup of hot milk. The night wind in the Adirondack Mountains was too cold. My stomach is still cramping."
Fury ignored the request. He pulled a file from a drawer and tossed it straight onto the glaringly bright desktop.
"Lynn, S.H.I.E.L.D. Level Three Logistics Agent. Mediocre record, barely passing marksmanship scores, frequently at the bottom in combat training. According to your file, your most common response to an emergency is to find cover." Fury's voice was low and hoarse, carrying unquestionable authority. "But just two hours ago, Hydra traitors held a gun to your head, and you were caught in a supernatural attack involving the power to tear even a Helicarrier apart with bare hands."
Fury roughly opened the file and pointed at the impossibly steady line graph inside, a cold gleam suddenly flashing in his lone eye. "During a thirty-minute life-or-death crisis, your heart rate stayed at sixty-five beats per minute from beginning to end. No fluctuations, no stress response. Even your adrenaline secretion was at sleeping levels."
He abruptly leaned forward, bracing both hands on the desk, his massive shadow instantly engulfing Lynn. "An ordinary agent, in that kind of hell, with a heartbeat steadier than a dead man's. Lynn, what the hell are you?"
Lynn lowered his eyes and looked at the heart rate chart.
The old fox really was perceptive.
But this was all within his expectations. The "Chaos Magic affinity constitution" granted by the system had already reshaped his nervous system at the genetic level. Unless he wanted it to, even a nuclear bomb strapped to his back would not cause the slightest tell in his vital signs.
"Sir, do you believe in parallel dimensions?" Rather than answering directly, Lynn posed a completely unrelated question.
Fury's brow furrowed deeply, but he said nothing. The green waveform on the lie detector's screen remained steady.
Lynn sighed softly, adding just the right touch of weariness and world-worn exhaustion to his tone. "Starting three months ago, I began having an incredibly realistic series of dreams every night. In those dreams, I wasn't in this world. I was in all kinds of bizarre dimensions. But no matter how the setting changed, the dreams always had only one ending."
He raised his head and looked straight into Fury's lone eye, utterly genuine pain surfacing deep in his pupils. "I was dying for that woman named Wanda."
In the shadows, Coulson shifted his feet slightly, his breathing growing noticeably heavier.
"In the ruins of Sokovia, I pushed someone out of the way and took thirty armor-piercing rounds from a Quinjet in my back. I still remember perfectly the suffocating feeling of bloody foam clogging my windpipe as the bullets shredded my lungs."
Lynn's voice was quiet, yet it evoked chillingly vivid images.
"On a clock tower in New York, I cut the spider silk to save someone and fell hundreds of meters. The wind tore at my eardrums. The sound of my bones shattering against the concrete echoed in my head for an entire week."
"And there was having my heart pierced by a spear, being burned to ashes..."
With every sentence Lynn spoke, the lie detector's needle traced a smooth, straight line on the paper tape.
The green light stayed on.
There was no indication of a lie.
Because Lynn was telling the absolute truth. These were all deaths he had personally experienced in the Till Death Do Us Part Simulator. The system had reproduced that soul-rending pain for him with one hundred percent fidelity. He did not need to act at all. He only needed to pull out his memories and read through them.
Fury's expression changed completely. He stared hard at the glaring green light, suspicion practically spilling from his lone eye.
"You're saying you died ten thousand times for that terrifying witch in your dreams?" Fury clenched his teeth, forcing the words out between them. "That's why she threw herself at you like a lunatic when she saw you in reality? That's why your heartbeat didn't falter with a gun pointed at your head?"
"Sir, if you'd already been killed countless times in all sorts of brutal ways in your dreams, would a few little pistols pointed at you in reality scare you?" Lynn gave a bitter laugh and leaned back in his chair. "I thought they were just hallucinations caused by nervous exhaustion. Until today, when that woman who should only have existed in my dreams stood before me in the flesh and even tore apart a fighter jet for me."
A perfect, crushing strike through an information advantage.
The existence of magic and dimensions was a complete blind spot for S.H.I.E.L.D., which at this stage believed only in technology and mutation. Lynn had packaged the "awakening of heroines' memories" caused by the system's side effects as a meeting of souls across dimensions.
Nine parts truth, one part falsehood. That was the cleverest kind of lie.
Fury fell silent.
He turned to Coulson, who shook his head slightly, indicating that the lie detector was functioning normally and had suffered no electromagnetic or psychic interference.
"Agent Lynn." Fury settled back into his chair, his fingers tapping a dull rhythm on the desk. Tap, tap, tap. "Your story is fascinating. But S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't believe in fairy tales. All I see is an extremely dangerous variable that could flatten Washington, D.C., at any moment."
"Sir, Wanda isn't a variable. She's just a girl who lacks a sense of security." Lynn sounded sincere, even adding a hint of a subordinate's appeal to his superior. "As long as I'm beside her, she's safe. But if someone tries to separate us, or shoots at me..."
Lynn paused, his gaze suddenly turning cold as he lowered his voice. "Like that guy called Crossbones today. Sir, if I hadn't stopped her, do you think the Triskelion would still be standing?"
Those words struck Fury right where he was vulnerable.
The muscles at the corner of Fury's eye twitched violently. Of course he knew Lynn was threatening him, but this was a threat he had no choice but to swallow. The Skyfather-level combat power that witch had displayed was simply beyond the reach of conventional weapons.
Lynn was currently the only chain that could hold that monster.
"You can keep your secrets, Lynn." Fury snapped the file shut, fixing him with a cold stare from his lone eye. "I'll arrange a private safe house with the highest level of security. No one will disturb either of you. But remember, if that woman loses control one more time, I'll wipe you both off the face of the earth, even if I have to use a nuclear bomb."
"Understood, sir. Thank you for your generosity."
Lynn stood and casually pulled off the electrode pads. The moment the metal restraints came undone, he sneered inwardly.
A nuclear bomb? Once Wanda fully mastered Chaos Magic, a nuclear bomb wouldn't even count as a particularly large firework to her.
"Coulson, take him to the lounge. Arrange a transfer first thing tomorrow." Fury waved a hand and turned his swivel chair, presenting his back to them as he looked out at the night through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He said nothing more.
Lynn followed Coulson out of the director's office.
The corridor was dimly lit. Coulson walked ahead without a word, the atmosphere unusually oppressive.
Just as they were about to reach the elevators, footsteps suddenly sounded from the shadows at the end of the corridor, leather shoes striking the polished marble floor.
Tap, tap, tap.
The pace was unhurried, carrying the composure of someone long accustomed to authority.
An elderly man with a full head of silver hair emerged from the shadows in a bespoke suit. A gentle smile rested on his face, and his gaze passed over Coulson to land squarely on Lynn.
Coulson stopped immediately and bowed his head respectfully. "Secretary Pierce."
Alexander Pierce, former director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and current senior secretary of the World Security Council. He was also Hydra's highest-ranking leader embedded within S.H.I.E.L.D.
A barely perceptible flicker of amusement passed through Lynn's eyes.
The fish had taken the bait.
Pierce approached Lynn, his deep-set eyes looking him up and down as though appraising a priceless treasure.
"Agent Lynn, you've had quite a fright tonight." Pierce's voice was gentle and full of an elder's concern. "Fury is always so unfeeling. He only sees you as a dangerous bomb, but he can't see your true value."
Pierce waved a hand, motioning for Coulson to step back.
Coulson hesitated, but faced with Pierce's superior rank, he could only retreat to a corner more than ten meters away.
Only Lynn and Pierce remained in the corridor.
Pierce took a black magnetic card from the inside pocket of his suit and slowly extended it toward Lynn between two fingers. Its edges shone with a cold metallic luster in the dim light.
"What Fury can't give you, I can." Pierce stared into Lynn's eyes, his voice extremely low yet carrying a deadly allure. "For example, the absolute clearance of a S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 7 Agent. Or... the power to make that girl yours forever."
Lynn looked at the black card that represented the core authority of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s upper ranks, but did not immediately reach for it.
He raised his head to meet Pierce's ambitious gaze, the corner of his mouth curling into a meaningful smile.
At that, Pierce's smile deepened, and he prepared to deliver that classic recruitment line.
Just then, Lynn suddenly stepped forward and leaned close to Pierce's ear, softly uttering four words in a voice only the two of them could hear.
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