Disclaimer: I own no part of Marvel.
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PROLOGUE
I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up. Maybe what was wrong had woken me up itself – maybe the wreck my life had become during the night sent ripples across the world, and those ripples nudged me out of sleep, out of peace, and into a dark morning that was actually in the middle of a beautiful sunrise. I felt warmth on my face, but a chill down my back.
My arms snapped straight as soon as I was conscious, sending me into a sitting position so fast I became dizzy. For a moment, I chalked the fear clenching me up to a bad dream. But that notion fell away as fast as my blankets did. I'd worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. for three years by this time. I'd had nightmares and I'd seen nightmares. I could tell the difference, feel it. Instincts are an important part of being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. The people who don't learn to trust them are the people who die.
Which is why the bad feeling I'd woken up to was pure and simple dread when my feet touched the floor. I went to the window and pulled back the curtain. Like I said, it was a beautiful morning. Golden sunlight was just beginning to trickle across the Barton farm, and the sky was clear and bright, but my hand was shaking when I let go of the curtain. I stepped back, closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and told myself that I was, in fact, freaking out from a bad dream I just couldn't remember. My instincts were good, sure, but I was also only sixteen – sixteen-year-olds misinterpret things. Nobody is ever as wrong as they are when they're teenagers, Clint told me once. I've never forgotten that, and I've often wondered how he arrived at that conclusion and whether or not he's right. But I can say now that, on this morning, I wasn't wrong. I shoved my instincts away as best as I could, but they wouldn't leave, not completely. They kept whispering in my head and swirling in my chest as I left the room.
So, actually, I was wrong. I tried to ignore them, my instincts. Stupid of me.
The steps didn't creak when I walked downstairs. The first time Clint brought me to his place, I'd noticed that he, unlike Laura and I, could go up and down the stairs all he wanted, as fast as he wanted, and barely make a sound. I made it my mission to learn to do the same. I finally reached that point this year, just in time for baby Lila's arrival. Cooper had to deal with me tramping up and down after he was born, but now they both got to sleep in, like little kids should be able to. Especially on such lovely, lovely mornings.
The kitchen smelled like breakfast . . . French toast. Laura went out of her way to make hot meals whenever Clint and I were home. French toast was my favorite, and she knew that. But when I got downstairs, she wasn't in the kitchen, and Clint wasn't sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, watching her like she was the first and last woman in the world.
No, they were both in the living room, facing the television, backs to me. I actually looked to Clint before looking to the TV, because that was the habit burned into my being – look to Clint. For orders, for advice . . . for assurance.
And that's when I knew I hadn't had a bad dream. For three years, I'd spent more time with Clint than anyone else, and I knew his every stance, how every one of his muscles moved and what each kind of move meant, and on this morning he was wound tighter than I'd seen him in a long time. Maybe ever. What I remember most is that his hands were in fists, and that blew me back, because he never held his hands in fists here.
I moved in. My heart was pounding. My stomach had dropped to floor. I finally paid attention to the TV, where a blonde newscaster was speaking in a solemn voice, the kind all newscasters adopt right before they jump into a story about puppy adoption or a celebrity not wearing underwear.
". . . no word yet on how the search will proceed, but no one can deny that the chances of the billionaire weapons manufacturer being found alive seem, sadly, very slim indeed."
In the upper right corner of the television was a picture of my father. On a red stripe at the bottom of the screen were the words, TONY STARK AMBUSHED IN AFGHANISTAN, PRESUMED DEAD.
I lost my breath. I didn't need it. I'd stopped functioning the way a human should function. My heart had stopped beating, so blood had stopped pumping, so I had frozen completely. The only thing moving inside of me were those words on that red stripe. They spun in my head.
PRESUMED DEAD.
"Sierra."
Clint had turned. I'd yet to learn to sneak in or out of a room without his knowledge. This morning was no exception. When he said my name, Laura spun around, too. Her hands dropped. They'd been covering her mouth.
I saw all that out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't look away from the television screen. From the picture of my father. My father, who I hadn't seen in a year. Who knew nothing of the person I had become. Who stared at me through this television screen with the eyes I'd inherited. Eyes that cut into me and caused a pain like I'd never felt before.
PRESUMED DEAD.
"Sierra." Clint was next to me. "I just talked to Fury. Every available agent has been deployed for the search." He took hold of both my shoulders, but that blocked the TV, so I pulled away from him.
"Not every agent," I breathed to my father's picture.
And so it began.