Bancroft was sitting at his little table in his cell when they came, all armed and covered in insulated tactical gear, specially designed for dealing with electricity. He scoffed and rolled his eyes at the sight. They all knew he’d been stuck with an inhibitor cuff on for… what was it now? Nearly a year by now, surely. Maybe longer. He’d lost track. There was no calendar to reference, just a clock on the wall outside his cell, visible through the reinforced window by the door.
Following the armed agents (soldiers really) was a youngish looking man, early(?) thirties Bancroft guessed. He wore a suit with a red tie; his dark, chin length hair neatly combed back. Normally the Suits that came in looked uncertain or at least a little timid when they saw Bancroft. This man however looked neither.
Bancroft didn’t bother moving from his chair as they entered, instead just watching as a pair of guards entered, weapons with their illuminated accents identifying them as ICERS pointed at him. The other pair of guards waited outside the cell, but the suited man entered.
“Good evening,” he greeted Bancroft, casually taking the empty seat on the other side of the table. He had an English accent, somewhat softened by his time in the States.
“Good evening…?” Bancroft repeated slowly, carefully sounding it into a question.
“Jacen Westmore,” the young man responded, holding out a business card, which he allowed Bancroft to look at, but not touch.
“The…Raft?” Bancroft frowned after reading the man’s details. “So you know-”
“Yes, I work quite regularly with both SHIELD and Ross,” the younger man sighed, his tone suggesting it was a rehearsed response to a question asked of him a number of times before.
The Hydra agent’s frown only deepened in response to being cut off. “And what do you want with me?”
“Oh, they haven’t told you?” Jacen said as he tucked his card back into a pocket on the inside of his suit jacket. One corner of his mouth twitched, as if he were about to smirk but thought it better not to. “The investigation against you, Pierce and the rest of your ‘Project SABRE’ has been finished. Pierce of course is deceased so we only have you to hold accountable for the Project and your …extremely well-kept records are more than enough to incriminate you, even if the agent you targeted hadn’t given his story. SHIELD’s legal department has sentenced you to Life -what’s left of it anyway- in the Raft.”
“The Raft?!” Bancroft suddenly rose from his seat, holding up a hand out of habit.
As soon as he started even raising his arm though, the two guards pointed their weapons at him. It was only because Jacen held up a hand to signal them to wait that Bancroft was still conscious to finish the movement.
“Oh dear, been down here so long that you’ve forgotten, have you?” He said quietly, his tone no longer professional but mocking. He pointed at Bancroft’s left wrist, where instead of a watch sat his inhibitor cuff. “It must really hurt that big ego of yours, I’m sure; No one around here to manipulate. No chance of zapping anyone who annoys you…”
“I did not just ‘zap’ over small-” Bancroft started angrily.
“Oh no?” Jacen raised an eyebrow and pushed up the end of one sleeve. He pressed a button on the side of the watch he wore and a holoscreen rose from the small device, Jacen reading Bancroft’s case file off the floating image. “...’Clayton Weiss, Level 1 Agent from Internal Affairs…’ Held captive and murdered by you because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time-”
“He was annoying!” Bancroft snapped. “Always making jokes like a little child!”
Jacen scowled at him. “That is no justification for what you did. It certainly doesn’t excuse the murder, or the repeated attempts to capture and manipulate SHIELD agents. Nor does it excuse the experiments you made records of, where you and Pierce reportedly pushed powered agents so far they wound up dead!”
He switched off his holoscreen and rose from his chair. He was fairly thin, Bancroft guessed, but the younger man stood a little taller than he did (much to the electrokinetic’s annoyance).
“You’re lucky you got away with simply being locked in a cell!” Jacen hissed. “From what I’ve read of your records, not even the Raft is punishment enough for you.”
Before Bancroft could respond, he felt one of the guards’ ICER shots hit him.
The next thing he knew, he was groggily lifting his head off the floor of a moving vehicle; his hands cuffed together. He huffed and let his head gently drop back onto the floor and laid there, glaring at both the handcuffs and the inhibitor that were locked around his wrists.
“Oh good, you’re awake. We weren’t sure we had the correct dosage.”
“What?” Bancroft shifted to sit slumped against the wall of the van, breathing heavily after the effort while both groggy and handcuffed. “You… irresponsible little-”
“I really don’t think you’re in a position to be insulting me Elijah,” Jacen casually pointed out. He then lowered his voice, not that anyone but his own guards were present.
It only occurred to Bancroft then, as the younger man got up from his seat that the van wasn’t currently moving.
“I may be formally recognised as a Superhuman Corrections officer, but I do have interests outside of work…”
Jacen chuckled and walked over to crouch a short distance in front of Bancroft. “Because Elijah; I was going to offer you a job.”
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