Chapter Text
It was late into the night.
That much, Will knew.
There were no windows in the room to confirm it, no sliver of moonlight or glow of dawn; there was just the low buzz of the single lightbulb swaying above him and his own perception of time. He'd been in the room for twenty minutes now, maybe longer, but he wasn't sure - the only clock in the room was broken.
Strangely, Will didn't mind the silence. After tonight, it actually felt quite earned. His body was weighed down with exhaustion, his thoughts were virtually non-existent, and for the first time since everything had gone wrong, he was allowed to sit still. He wasn't running, he wasn't hiding, he was just breathing in and out as he awaited his fate.
What they'd done had been reckless...risky as hell...stupid, even.
But then again, all of their plans were stupid. They always had been. They never thought anything through; everything almost always went wrong...and they never listened to him. Ever.
Maybe if they had, they wouldn't be in this position right now.
His mind drifted to the others and what they could be feeling right now. Some were bruised, some were cut, and some were probably fine in appearance but not in the mind. He wondered whether they were locked in rooms like this one as well, or if this was just for him. The weakest one. The easiest to separate and crack. They had kept them all separate, that was a thing he knew for certain, as there was no chance they’d let anyone talk to each other in a situation like this.
Mike, especially, crossed his mind. There was no way he was sitting calmly right now; he'd be feeling completely different to himself, not able to keep his emotions in. Will almost smiled at that.
The door opened at last, and a flash of light spilt in from the hallway, drawing a sharp line across the floor and revealing a shadow standing there. It was a man, a short man, broad in a non-athletic way - and he walked in as the base of his shoes clopped against the cold concrete.
Will watched as the man pulled out the chair across from him at the table and sat down, his suit ceasing as he folded his hands down neatly in front of him.
"Hello, Will," the man said with an easy smile. "Long time no see."
Now out of the shadow of the light, with Will being able to see the tired lines of a familiar face, he could see clearly who it was.
Dr. Owens.
Long time no see...he supposed that was true. The last time Will had even known he was alive was through El - when she was in the lab in Nevada and was working with Dr Brenner. But the last time he'd actually seen him was at Starcourt Mall, when Owens brought in the military to erase the Russians and clean up the mess.
After those two instances, Owens had vanished off the face of the earth. They'd assumed the worst - that the government had silenced him, and that keeping El hidden from them had finally cost him his life. However, apparently, like most things…they'd been wrong.
Whatever this was, whatever Owens wanted, his even being here meant that tonight wasn't over yet.
"Dr Owens...," Will said at last, his face twisting into confusion, "what are you doing here?"
"Sam," Owens replied easily. "Call me Sam."
"I'd rather not," Will answered, not feeling that friendly. "Not until I know why you're here."
Owens didn't look offended at that, which Will thought he might have been. If anything, he seemed amused by it. He clasped his hands together and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table as though they were equals meeting over coffee instead of a steel desk under a flickering light.
"You and your friends," he said gently, "have managed to get yourselves into a bit of trouble again I see."
"So you're with the FBI?" Will commented, trying to piece it together himself. "I thought you were on our side?”
"I’m not taking any sides," Owens continued, unfazed and lifting his hands in the air, "All they did was ask me to come in, to help with getting to the bottom of this."
Will's eyes flicked up to the mirror behind Owens's head. He imagined that someone was standing behind it, watching them. "With the interrogation, you mean?"
Owens laughed, but Will didn't find it that funny. "That tends to be the word people use when they don't like the questions asked of them."
Yeah...because they had been bullshit questions.
"They took her," Will said with anger. "Do you know that? They ripped her right out of Mike's hands."
"I know you broke into a military base," Owens replied calmly, completely ignoring what he said. "Which is illegal."
Will scoffed at his audacity. Illegal, that was a joke. Every time Will had seen him, he'd been doing something illegal.
"And keeping people locked up against their will isn't?" he returned the question bitterly.
Owens hesitated then - just for a fraction of a second. It was barely noticeable, but it was enough for Will to sense that he may have agreed with him there.
"Arrest is not illegal," Owens said carefully.
"That's not what I'm talking about," Will replied, "I'm not talking about us, I'm talking about El, and you're avoiding the topic."
Owens looked down at him over the rim of his glasses, inspecting him down to his camouflage pants. Will guessed that their attire really was the one thing that was making them look guilty, but hey, it was the 80’s - wearing something weird didn’t make you guilty of breaking into a military base, it just made you on trend.
"This facility didn't see it as captivity," Owens stated, finally conversing with him, "they saw it as a necessity of national security."
"Oh, right," Will laughed darkly. "And Brenner's experiments were what? A gifted children's program? X-Men daycare?"
"Will," Owens warned, lowering his voice so whatever cameras were around them could pick it up, "I know you're angry. I would be too if my friend went away. But I'm not here to trap you, I'm here to understand how this happened."
Will slouched back in his chair, his dusty jacket sprinkling little particles onto the floor. "Went away?" he said breathlessly, shaking his head. "If that’s your point of view, then there’s no use me talking to you. I’ll say what I said to the others. No comment."
Owens nodded, as if he'd expected that answer. "Are you sure? That doesn't help your case, Will. We could just talk for a little while, for old time's sake."
"Last time we properly talked, you had me hooked up to a machine," Will stated, "possessed by an evil entity that was released because of this so-called government's experiments. Forgive me if I don't feel like opening up."
Owens sighed, his smile fading as he was losing his patience. "Look, I don't want you in a cell, kid. I don't want any of you to be in one. If you help me understand what happened tonight, I might be able to push for leniency."
"We shouldn't even be here," Will snapped. "Those people are the ones who should be locked up. They took El. If they hadn't, if she hadn't, none of this would've happened."
"You killed people tonight," Owens said quietly, as if Will would care about that anymore. “Anything to say about that?”
Will leaned forward slowly, his eyes burning with frustration. "Why don't you prove it, and then I’ll talk?"
Owens didn't answer right away, and Will knew why. He let out a short, bitter laugh.
"Because that's why you're here, isn't it?" he asked, finally working it out, "because they don't have anything. They have no evidence. They caught us outside the perimeter, that's it. Without a confession, they've got nothing."
"They've charged you," Owens said. "This is going to court, and they can hold you for forty-eight hours."
He gestured subtly to the room. "Which gives us plenty of time to work out whether you're lying or not."
Will leaned back again, folding his arms across his chest in protest. "No comment."
Owens exhaled through his nose, rubbing a hand over his face like a tired detective at the end of a long night.
"A classified base was breached," he stated, touching the table with his right index finger. "People are dead, and there's a missing kid. Someone needs to be held accountable, and it’s going to be you unless you help me here."
Will met his gaze and smiled - a small, knowing thing that he knew was going to drive Owens and the faceless people behind the mirror crazy.
"I would say no comment, but I just want to say good luck. You are never going to get us to talk."