Trust the one
Who's been where you are wishing all it was
Was sticks and stones
Those words cut deep but they don't mean you're all alone
And you're not invisible
Hear me out,
There's so much more to life than what you're feeling now
Someday you'll look back on all these days
And all this pain is gonna be invisible
Oh, invisible


I can move, but no one can see me.

I can speak, but no one can hear me.

I can touch, but no one can feel me.

I don't know what I am.

I know that I am here and I am real.

But to the world, I do not exist.


I call myself Shadow. I don't have a real family and I have no friends. There is no one else like me. I'm not even sure how this all started for me. The earliest memory I have is running after another little girl on a beach, watching as a woman picked her up and carried her to a car and drove away. Back then, I thought that a woman like that came for every little girl on the beach. In a way, I was right. A woman came for every little girl there.

Every little girl, except for me.

That was when I started to figure things out. I might look exactly like a normal person, with two eyes, two hands, one nose, and so on, but I am different. No one can see me or hear me. I am invisible. I am a ghost. I don't know if I'm from a different planet, or why I am this way. I just know that I am and after twenty-two years, I've come to accept that I might live my entire life and never have another person know me.

.

.

.

I was ten when I finally left my beach. I had finally decided that I needed to do something more with this weird sort of life that I had. It was easy to get away from the beach; all I had to do was slip into the trunk of a car when no one was looking. They couldn't see me, but I had to be careful not to jostle any of the things inside the car. The family that I snuck away with-the Scotts-had a little eleven-year-old named Alena and for the car ride back to their house I pretended I was her. I complained when she did and when she slept, I did the same. That was how I came up with The Game. Every day I wake up and I become someone else. I completely become them, down to every last detail.

I become their shadow.

So here I am, twelve years later and I'm still playing it. So when the alarm clock goes off in the bedroom of the apartment that I'm 'borrowing' while the owner is on vacation, I swing my legs out of the bed and pad off toward the bathroom to get ready.

An hour and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios later, I'm all set. My salt-and-pepper hair is in a long side braid and I've got on my favorite jeans. I'm wearing a purple tank top and carrying a teal side bag. Since I didn't bother putting my contacts in, I'm wearing my simple black frame glasses over my clear blue eyes. Hanging around my neck is the only clue I have to who I am. The necklace has a fine golden chain and dangling on the end is a funny looking shape made of smooth gold. It's an infinity sign, but on the left loop the ends don't meet. Instead, the end closest to the middle of the symbol drops down and forms a tear shape. The necklace has been around my neck for as long as I can remember, from when I was small enough that it reached my belly button until now. I have no idea what the shape means, despite having looked through every data base I could get access to. From what I've been able to find, the shape is just like me.

It doesn't exist.

I shake my head and pull myself out of my self-pitying thoughts. I've told myself a dozen times that it doesn't do any good to dwell on the mystery of who I am-clearly I'm not going to find any answers. I shut the lid tightly on that box and smile when I step out into the New York sunshine.

Who should I be today?

I cast a glance up and down the street and my gaze lands on a petite woman with short, dark, hair who is sitting on a bench, reading the newspaper.

Perfect.

I move over and stand just behind the woman, soaking in the early June warmth while I wait for her to do something, anything that will tell me more about her. I already know that she prefers the New York Post to the Times and that she likes cinnamon vanilla perfume. She's drinking coffee, not tea, so she's probably a native New Yorker.

"Steph!"

A voice calls out from just down the street and the woman's head jerks up. She smiles at the brunette who is waving to her and folds up her newspaper, grabs her coffee, and goes off to meet her friend.

Alright. Let's go be Steph.


As it turns out, Steph is a very, very busy person. She and her brunette friend, whose name is Mellany or Mels, get breakfast in a little café. I sit on the window ledge behind their table, laughing at Mels' jokes and sighing when they take just a little too long to deliver the food that I won't get to eat. After breakfast, Steph (with me tagging along) was out the door and off to her fitness club.

So, we like to exercise.

We spent the better part of the morning using various exercise equipment and to be honest, it felt great. It had been a while since I shadowed someone who liked to work out and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. I hurried through a shower before anyone could notice the water running in an empty stall and toweled off, quickly following Steph out the front door. We made it about half a block down the street when her phone started ringing.

"Hello?"

Steph paused for a moment and I watched curiously as her face brightened considerably.

"Absolutely. Pick me up one the corner of…" she trailed off as she glanced at the street sign of the nearest road, "Madison and Cook."

The person on the other end made a comment and Steph smiled, a little blush creeping up her neck.

"Just get here," she said, her voice a little higher than normal and she hung up the phone. When she started off again with me at her heels, her pace had quickened and there was a new spring in her step. I felt a sinking in my chest; I had an idea who we were going to meet and I didn't think that I would be able to stay.

I watched Steph closely, waiting for her face to signal that the car we were waiting for had come into view. Finally, her eyes lit up and she grinned when a small, silver Honda pulled around the corner. I immediately zeroed in on the driver and my heart dropped through my stomach. I didn't move as Steph made her way to the curb and opened the door. She slid into the car and leaned over to give the handsome man driving the vehicle a kiss. He pulled away with a look of complete adoration in his eyes and I felt the tears prick my eyes and a lump rise in my throat. I turned away as the car pulled back into traffic, my eyes burning.

I think I'll just go back to the apartment.

I could pretend all I liked, but I knew that no one would ever look at me that way and no matter what I told myself, it hurt like hell.


The next morning I woke up two hours before my alarm, but I felt surprisingly rested. I shook off the residual pain from yesterday's episode with Steph and set about making myself ready to go. I tugged on my jeans and a pair of navy blue sneakers. Today I actually took the time to put in my contacts, but all I did with my hair was twist it into a ponytail. My necklace hung just above the neckline of my white blouse and I stepped out of the apartment. My breath hung in a cloud in the early morning cool. The sun peeked over the horizon, casting streaks of pink and orange across the sky. I don't often wake up in time to catch the sunrise, but when I do, it always takes my breath away. I perform my usual look up and down the street but find nothing.

Of course not. No one in their right mind is awake and out at sunrise.

All of a sudden, a movement on the edge of my vision catches my attention. I turn and smile when I see a figure jogging this way. Her curly, fiery red hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she has white ear buds in either ear.

I guess I got lucky this morning.

When the woman reaches my location I start jogging a few feet behind her, making careful observations about my persona today. Her concentrated look, along with her well-toned muscles, tells me that she is serious about fitness. It may even be connected to her line of work. She isn't wearing any makeup, but she doesn't need to. The woman has a natural beauty and it glows all around her. I content myself with my observations and sink into this person's life, allowing myself to pretend that I am simply the red-haired woman, out for my usual morning jog.


We must have jogged a good five miles before the woman finally stopped in front of a small apartment complex. I followed her through the front door and up three flights of stairs. She fished a key out of her pocket and let herself (and me) into apartment number 312. I stayed right by the door, watching the woman. She was systematically checking the apartment, as if she expected there to be an intruder.

So is she just paranoid, or has something happened to her?

I know I probably won't ever find out, but that doesn't stop me from wondering. The woman finished her search and she went into the bathroom. A moment later I heard the water start and I sat down on the couch while she showered. After a couple of minutes she emerged wearing black athletic shorts and a white tank top, her hair hanging in damp waves. She was just tying the laces on her sneakers when there was a knock on the door. A small smile snuck on to her face and I found myself filled with a sense of dread.

Did I really manage to pick two in a row?

I follow the woman to the door and stand behind her shoulder. I resign myself to the inevitable and to spending another day drowning in self-pity at the apartment. My fears are confirmed when she opens the door and I see a rugged man standing there.

That was about when things started to go…well, that was when things stopped going according to plans.

"Hey Tash-" The man's smile melted halfway through his greeting and the woman's name was cut off as he frowned. My breath caught in my throat, because he was directing that concerned look over the woman's shoulder.

He was looking at me.

No, I told myself. I glanced over my own shoulder to see what was behind me, he's just looking at that weird patch of carpet. He's not looking at you because no one can see you, remember?

I winced slightly as I remembered that little detail.

"Clint?" The woman frowned as well, staring up at the man before glancing over her shoulder in confusion. "What is it?"

"Natasha…why is there a girl standing behind you?"

I was so fixated on finding out the woman's name that for a second I didn't quite register the rest of the man's question. But then my mind caught up to my ears.

Wait, what?

I stared at the man with wide eyes, gasping when he stared right back at me.

Not through me, at me.

Like his eyes could actually see my body, like he knew that I was there.

Someone can see me, I thought, a sort of numb joy setting in, someone can see me.

Of course, it wasn't really that simple. The woman spun around and stared at where I was standing, but I could tell from the puzzled look in her eyes that all she was seeing was empty space.

"Clint…there's nothing there…"

The man-Clint-pushed past her and loomed over me. I shrunk back and stared up at him with wide, scared eyes.

If this was what people were like when they saw you, maybe I was better off being invisible.

"Who are you?" asked Clint, his eyes hard and unforgiving. I swallowed and took a breath to say the first words that someone might actually hear.

"Can you really see me?"

"Clint-" Clint held up a hand to hush the woman he had called Tasha. She flashed him a glare but fell silent.

"Of course I can," Clint spoke back to me, his harsh glare cooling a few notches and mixing with puzzlement, "Why can't Natasha?"

I glanced over at the red-head who was staring at Clint with a mix of worry and anger.

"Because she's normal," I whispered. Clint's frown deepened and he shot Natasha a look.

"You really don't see her, do you?"

"It's because there's nothing there, Clint. Don't you think I would've known if someone was in my apartment?"

Clint looked back at me and then back at Natasha, and then his face lit up.

"Hang on a second." He darted over to the counter, grabbed the pad of paper and pen that Natasha kept there and brought it back, holding it out to me. I looked at him, not sure what he wanted me to do.

"Write something. Prove to Natasha that you're real and I'm not delusional," he explained, catching my confused look. I nodded slowly. Anything, as long as he didn't turn back into the mean, menacing man that had seen me through the door. I took the pad of paper and pen from him and heard Natasha gasp. Clint glanced up at her, wordlessly questioning her.

"It just…" She stared in wonder at the pen and paper that I knew she couldn't see.

"What, Nat?"

"It just disappeared," I said quietly, "just like anything else that I touch."

Clint's head swung back in my direction. "What did you mean when you said 'she's normal'? Because really, she's not. Neither of us is."

Natasha snorted. "She called me normal?"

I twisted the pen between my fingers. "She can't see me. Or hear me. So she's like everyone else."

"Everyone?" I nodded, looking down at my hands. "Why?"

"I don't know."

"Clint…"

"Sorry Nat." He looked over at me and nodded at the paper. "Write something?"

I paused for a second, then went with the obvious. I scribbled 'hi' onto the paper and dropped the paper so that Natasha would be able to see it again. It popped back into her vision and she stared at the word written there. Slowly, she looked at me, and even though all she was seeing was thin air, she slowly said,

"Hello."

Clint looked at me. "Where are you from?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything about myself."

"Have you always been this way?"

I nodded, still not sure how they were going to react. Natasha was watching Clint and both of them looked properly shocked. For a minute, it looked like neither of them was quite sure what to say. Finally, Natasha looked back in my general direction.

"What's your name?"

I sighed softly. "I don't have a name. Not really."

Natasha was staring expectantly at Clint, waiting for the answer. Clint furrowed his brow in confusion when he heard my reply.

"You must call yourself something."

I shook my head. "Yesterday, I was Steph. Today, I'm Natasha."

"But in your head, don't you think of yourself as anything?"

Well he's nothing if not persistent.

"I guess the closest thing I have to a name is Shadow. That's what I do, so if I have to refer to the real me, that's what I use. But I never have to."

"Well?" Natasha was getting impatient. I could understand why. It was probably really frustrating, only hearing one side of a conversation that was happening right in front of her eyes.

"She calls herself Shadow, when she has to. She says that she has a different name every day. I think it's because she 'shadows' people each day, pretending to be them, so she adopts their name when she's following them."

Painful understanding appeared in Natasha's eyes. "She's a different person every day?"

Clint looked up, hearing the slight catch in Natasha's voice. "Yeah."

"So what do we do?"

I looked over at Natasha, surprised. What did she mean? They couldn't exactly tell people that there was an invisible person running around New York. No one was going to buy that.

"Well, we could take her to Fury…" Clint chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. "Scratch that. Let's take her to Coulson."

What?

"You can't just take me somewhere!" I cried in protest.

"Well, I'm certainly not letting you walk back out into a world where no one can see you!" Clint looked at her like she was insane. "What happens if you get hurt or sick or something?"

"I'm 22," I said evenly, "I can take care of myself. I don't get sick, and I heal fast."

"I'm still taking you in," insisted Clint, "We need to figure this out." He gestured between the two of us.

"He has grounds for taking you in," pointed out Natasha, "you broke into my apartment."

I rolled my eyes at both of them. "You can't send a person who doesn't exist to jail."

"Watch me," said Clint, and the determination in his eyes was hard to doubt. He glanced over at Natasha. "You ready?"

She nodded and Clint looked down at me. I sighed and pushed myself forward so I was standing in front of him.

"Good. Let's go."


"You expect me to believe this, Barton? Romanoff?"

The man they called Coulson looked disbelievingly between the two people and then he looked at the empty space between them.

The empty space that wasn't really empty, of course.

I watched the man, fidgeting nervously. My eyes unconsciously flicked toward Clint and I waited to see what he would do.

"Not until we prove it to you Phil."

"And how are you going to prove to me that an invisible girl that only you can see is sitting in front of me, Barton?"

"Like this." Clint picked up paper and a pen from Coulson's desk and turned to me. I took the paper hesitantly, waiting for Coulson's look of surprise, but he just stared at the spot where the items had disappeared.

Apparently, he had seen things disappear into thin air before.

"Write something," Clint told me for the second time that day. I sighed and wrote 'hi Mr. Coulson' on the paper and handed it back to Clint. Coulson didn't even blink when the paper reappeared. Clint passed it to the man behind the desk and he took it and looked down. When he looked back up there was only a trace of doubt left in his eyes.

"She's really there?" Clint and Natasha nodded. "And she says no one can see her? No one has ever been able to?"

"No one," confirmed Clint. I shrunk back a bit in my chair when Coulson turned his gaze on me, but I met his eyes as confidently as I could, even if he didn't know that I was doing it.

"Does she know why?" Clint shook his head. Coulson sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"So what exactly are you asking me to do, Barton?"

"Can she stay here at S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Shield? What the hell is that? Is that where we are? This whole situation has given me a deplorable lack of curiosity.

Coulson hesitated, but apparently he didn't have a defense mechanism against the really big puppy dog eyes that Clint was giving him right now.

"Fine, fine! She can stay until we figure the situation out more." Clint grinned widely and even turned to me to give me a little thumbs-up. I felt myself smile in spite of myself. Even if I didn't know anything about this 'shield', it was so nice to have someone fighting for me.

It was something that I never thought I would get to feel.

"Why don't you get her set up in the room between yours and Romanoff's where you guys hide your secret stash of medical supplies?"

A guilty look crossed Clint's face, followed by indignation.

"How do you know about that?!"

Natasha snorted at Clint and Coulson smiled.

"Honestly Barton, I'm your handler. When are you going to stop asking that question?"

Natasha smirked and Coulson rounded on her. "I'm your handler too Romanoff. Remember that. Now get out of my office."

Clint and Natasha rose and turned toward the door but Coulson's voice stopped them-and me-one last time.

"Oh and it was nice to meet you…?"

"Shadow," I whispered.

"Shadow," said Clint.

"It was nice to meet you Shadow." Coulson's eyes were smiling and his face looked kind. I couldn't help but smile back, just a tiny little grin.

"Thank you," I said, begging Clint not to lose any of the emotion in my voice when he translated.

"She says 'thank you'." Clint's voice caught at the end and I nodded, satisfied.

"Alright," said Coulson, "Now you can get out."

Smiling widely, Clint and Natasha led me down the hallway to a new life where maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to pretend anymore.


A/N: Soooooooo what do you guys think? Reviews are much appreciated and I'm definitely open to any requests that you may have about this story, although I do reserve the right to not use them:-) Until next chapter!