Chapter Text
Jack Bright has been assigned a handler. It was not the expected outcome from the meeting to decide if he should remain in relic containment or be allowed to work, and there was something that just screamed that Mikell had suggested this, something to deny him the peace of being alone at any given time. He hasn’t met the Agent being assigned to him, but there’s two things he knows for certain.
The first is that the man has been chosen for his absolute loyalty to the Foundation, someone who would die for them if that was what is needed of him.
The second, is that he’s someone that would feel no remorse about putting a bullet through his head if the command was given.
He sits on the low bed in the cell he’s been sleeping in while the meeting was ongoing. He’s not keen on this body, it’s incredibly short, and the nicest thing he can say about it is at least they’ve stopped gluing 963 to his forehead. It hangs on a chain about his neck, every bit a gaudy accessory, and he fidgets with the chain while he waits. Eventually, the door opens and a Doctor he remembers from the experiments on 963 slips in, followed by a dark haired man in a pitch black suit with the coldest eyes he’s ever seen.
“Dr. Bright.”
He can just hear the condescension dripping from the researcher’s voice. He had campaigned rather vigorously for Jack to remain in containment. Luckily, he had been voted down. Or perhaps unluckily, he thinks, as he feels the cruel eyes of the Agent crawl over him.
“Dr. Steel.”
He tries to sound condescending right back at him, but it’s hard with this man who looks like he hurts people for business and pleasure standing right to the left of him, looking like he’s personally been wronged by Jack’s very existence.
“You’ll be pleased to meet your new best friend . This is Agent Shard. You’ll find his company very enjoyable.”
Shard’s lip twitches, emotion barely contained. He’s a striking man, tanned, freckled skin, gleaming black hair, scars across the left half of his face and his left eye a brilliant, startling blue. The short D-Class he’s been given suddenly feels very drab in comparison to this enormously tall Agent that’s to keep an eye on him at all times.
“Hello, Shard.”
Shard mutters something that sounds impolite. This was going to go just as well as Jack thought it was going to, wasn’t it?
“Shard here has been chosen because of his… Capabilities. He’s a rather brilliant man, Doctor Bright. He’s also a Doctor, of medicine, mind you, and speaks several languages that you might find… Helpful.”
Steel claps an arm to Shard’s shoulder and Shard gives the limb a look like he’s considering pulling it off and beating the Doctor to death with it. The Doctor removes the hand and the Agent returns to cold impassivity.
“Well. Anyway, he’s been chosen for a rather… Unique capability. Shard? A demonstration if you will.”
The Agent approaches, and looms over Bright. Despite the calculated, clinical blankness of his expression, Jack can feel the hatred rolling off him in waves, and it makes him feel sick to the stomach. This was who his brother (sorry, O5-6 ) had chosen to keep watch over him?
As Shard reaches toward 963, Jack grabs his wrist and tries to stop his hand, and sees a look of genuine disgust cross Shard’s face as the man grabs Jack’s much smaller hand and rips it away. The movement is brief, and vicious, and there’s an anxiety that grips him, but Shard drops his hand as if he’s been burned and firmly grasps 963.
And nothing happens.
He’s almost in shock as the Agent picks up the amulet from his chest in slender fingers, toying with it for just a moment before setting it down. He’s shocked, and the Agent pulls back stiffly, returning to Steel’s side like a trained dog. From within the collar of his shirt, Jack can see the scarring continues down the side of his neck and across the rest of his body.
“Shard’s been picked for a very good reason, as you can see. He’s been rendered… Immune to the effects of that delightful little accessory of yours, Jack. Shame making more like him would be… Difficult, as well as dangerous enough to be outright banned. After all, 963-2 should be enough.”
He smiles thinly at Jack.
“I’ll make sure some clothes are brought to you. Get you back in a lab coat and shipped back to good old 19, hm?”
The Doctor goes to leave, and Shard remains, moving only to pull on a pair of leather gloves. Jack desperately reaches for the only thing he’s sure off in this situation: small talk, however inane. Disarm through societal convention.
“You.... Got a name or is it just Shard?”
The much taller man looks at him in a way that makes him feel incredibly small.
“Just Shard.”
He sounds European. Perhaps some flavour of Irish. Either way, he spits the name like it’s venom from his lips. He puts him in mind of a feral cat, willing to cooperate so far, but too much and he lashes out, claws spread. He had seen the outright threat in his eyes when the Doctor had touched him. A real promise of violence if he’d ever seen one.
A set of clothes are put through the hatch at the bottom of the door and Shard bends to pick them up, before passing them to Jack. Again he feels the distaste, but Shard doesn’t flinch as much when their hands brush as he takes the clothes.
Shard turns and lights a cigarette, giving Jack some semblance of privacy to change his clothes from the D-Class’ jumpsuit and into the clothes provided. There’s almost something reassuring about the dark, cold back of the agent as he thoroughly ignores Jack’s existence and smokes his cigarette. He knows the agent is not going to turn or look at him and that’s the best part of all.
Once dressed, he awkwardly steps up beside the Agent, who flicks eyes over him and then slides his pass over the door, holding it open for Jack to go through first.
“Transport zone. We’re going to be headed for Nineteen.”
Definitely Irish. The accent is soft over a deep voice that sounds like it should be coming from an older man. Jack thinks about asking if there’s any belongings they should be collecting, but there’s something so stern about him that at the moment, feeling tired to his bones from the events of the last few days, that he decides not to. They’re soon waiting in the transport, watching for their flight out of here to the small airfield that will transfer them to SIte 19 to depart. Jack’s looking forward to seeing some familiar faces, like Gears and some of his other colleagues. He glances at Shard again and the man has his eyes closed, like he’s lost in thought.
“Everything okay?” He says, quietly, at least trying to broker a conversation with the man in the small airplane seat next to him. The Agent’s hand flexes as he grips the chair’s seat as the plane starts moving.
“Claustrophobic,” Shard replies, and it’s the first word he’s heard out of the man not tinged with anger. “It will pass.”
There’s something that makes him want to reach out and reassure him, but he doesn’t, knowing physical contact is not something well received by him by how he’d reacted to the Doctor touching him. The flight is thankfully brief, and as soon as they’re waiting at the small airfield in the bitter chill wind that sweeps over the unnamed land owned by the Foundation, Shard draws out a packet of black cigarettes and lights one, drawing deeply on it while Jack looks on wistfully.
“What you staring at, Dochtúir ?”
Jack swallows. “I… Could I have one?”
Shard looks over the cigarette clasped between two leather clad fingers, then returns it between his lips. He pulls out a silvered cigarette case and extends it, flicking it open to reveal the black cigarettes within. He takes one hesitantly, and slides it between his lips and is about to pat himself down to see if they at least left him with a lighter when Shard’s gloved hand looms into view, clutching a zippo. Jack looks up to nod his thanks, but Shard isn’t looking at him. He’s watching someone approach from across the airfield with purpose, and seems to almost… Slip himself between the person and Jack. When they draw near, he doesn’t recognise them, but Shard certainly does, and the pair begin an angry conversation in what sounds like Russian.
It’s from the corner of his eye that he spots security approaching, weapons being drawn, and then the man angrily gestures at Jack and is pushed back by Shard. Jack takes a few steps back, and the man seems to flip - drawing a pistol in one smooth movement. Shard grabs onto him and forces him back with frigid impassivity. The pistol is levelled at him and Bright tries to start moving away - but Shard’s arm grabs and pulls the mouth of the gun towards him just as the man pulls the trigger, and there’s a sickening, wet thunk and a loud bang as half of Shard’s face is blown off.
Jack instantly bends double, trying not to be sick as the handler slumps to his knees and the man approaches, Bright only now starting to recognise him as an Agent occasionally based at Site 19 as the gun’s barrel is pushed against his forehead and he’s forced to his knees. As he is, it strikes him that he shouldn’t be scared. He’s Jack Bright, for fuck’s sake, it’s been proven he’s not allowed to die, he’ll be back in a new body by lunch.
But he fears the pain.
He fears the moment of death.
The man asks him something he doesn’t understand, and Jack screws his eyes tightly shut, and just waits for the snap of the trigger being pulled and his short stint of being in this body to be ended.
But the moment doesn’t come. Instead, the barrel moves away from his head and there’s a loud snap and a scream of agony, and he hesitantly looks up to see Shard, on his feet, holding an arm that he has very clearly just snapped in two. The attacker drops the gun, and Security look on hesitantly, not sure what way to act now that Shard has gotten up and seemingly shrugged off a bullet through the head, blood pouring from the wounds in a sickly red waterfall. Shard uses the man’s pain to force him to his knees, and seems to try to speak, but half of his jaw flaps uselessly, the muscle holding it in place disconnected. What he does instead is start to push his thumbs through the man’s eyes, and he screeches in agony as he does so, no emotion present in his eyes.
As soon as it’s over, and Jack has stopped retching he looks up to see Shard is sat on the concourse, injuries looking better and better with each passing moment, his jaw slowly pulling itself back into place with reforming muscle. He looks exhausted in a way he’s all too familiar with. When you’re tired in your soul, not merely the body.
They’re ushered onto the flight as soon as it arrives and Jack can’t help but glance at him from the corner of his eye. He’s still coated in blood, having refused a change of clothes or a wash in favour of getting somewhere safe.
“Who was that?”
Shard shrugs. “Agent. Retired for fucking up.”
A lie. There’s something about the fact that he has that strikes Jack. Something about it that his brain latches onto with a sick, desperate curiosity.
“That can’t be it.”
Shard fixes him with an exhausted, blood-soaked expression. “Do you really want me to get into it right now ? I’m still unscrambling my fucking brain.”
That’s a fair point. He slips into uneasy silence, Shard screws his eyes shut like he’s in pain. Perhaps he might be. Jack sinks lower in his seat, closing his own eyes. Willing the world to swallow him whole.