There was a staircase in the old house I grew up in. I would frequently sit on a special stair about in the middle and try to imagine my life as an adult. I knew I didn't want to follow my father into the family business, but what I would do was a mystery.

As a kid, I stuck out. Skinny, short and too smart for my own good, I was a magnet for any kid who was bully aspirations. Or at least that was the case until I spent a summer with my grandfather and he taught me the art of self-defense. When I went back to school, there were a few kids in for quite the shock. Yet I discovered it was even more satisfying when I helped someone else avoid a beating. I think that's when it started. The first piece.

Like my father and his father before him, I joined the military. I was taught how to sneak, how to observe and how to kill. And I got to be very good at all three. I also got a bellyful of death. Watching your best friend become bullet-riddled hamburger will do that. I knew that it, like the playground beatings, had to stop and I was meant to do something about it. The second piece.

It was just death; I learned about life and love. I discovered that while I was good at death, life was much harder. Women made no sense to me, but it never stopped me from loving them. After a few disastrous attempts at a normal life, it became clear that while it was my job to take care and defend them against harm, the rest wasn't to be for me. Serve and protect, not love and marriage was my destiny. The third piece.

Getting out of the military, I first welcomed, then dreaded the freedom. There was just so much of it. I needed focus, I needed purpose. I needed my grandfather, but that wasn't going to happen. He was gone. I needed… my UNCLE. No, that's not a mistake.

I was recruited while still green and wet behind my ears. I thought the military had made me an efficient killing machine. HA! UNCLE showed me things I didn't dream was possible. The final piece had slid into place. I had the skills, the training, the purpose…

And I just didn't care. I connected with dozens of people a day, but something had clicked off inside me. I'd become like those hard-boiled PIs in the 50's. All I needed was a run-down office, a smart-mouthed secretary and a platinum blonde to hang off my arm and call me Johnny. The puzzle was finished and all that was left was to pack me away in a box and stick me on the shelf.

This sense of cold, single-minded purpose served me well and I advanced quickly. The higher I went, the colder I got. The façade fooled everyone… well, almost everyone. Waverly… that old man is more clever than anyone gives him credit for. He was determined to crack my hard-boiled shell and get inside.

We were stuck at our desks, a slap on the hand by Medical. I looked around. It was a good office, if a bit cramped and overwhelmed with paper. I really needed to toss that dead spider plant out, but the dead skeletal leaves were familiar and spoke of home.

"Hey, Napoleon, what are you doing?" Illya paused in typing the report. He's good at such things. I teased him that he was better than any of the girls in the steno pool.

"Thinking."

"I wondered what that grinding sound was."

"Funny, keep it up and I will call in sick tomorrow."

"You wouldn't dare bail on me. Not with all those kids. They look to you for guidance and…" He frowned, squinting at a note as his hair fell over his forehead in a blond wave. "Should I really tell Mr. Waverly that you took the Princess sky diving? Perhaps dancing would be a better option?"

Then I laughed and realized I had it all – the dumpy office, a sarcastic but ever so efficient Guy Friday and a platinum blond at my elbow. Hell, I even had a trench coat and a beat up fedora hanging by the door. And Waverly had gotten in with the help of my partner. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm still as hard boiled as they come, save for the little soft golden bit of me Waverly saved and my partner guarded until I was ready to start being human again. Maybe the puzzle isn't quite done after all.