1.
It was a dark day for her good senses when Sarah Miller received word she had been recruited for employment with S.H.I.E.L.D. at their new headquarters. It was an even darker day when she opened her dossier to find she would be working as an assistant in the newly retooled Avengers inititative department, in normal circumstances, without the superhuman company, a wondrous and terrifying look into how alternate, reality really had become. Add any one of the multiple personalities, the ultra rich, ultra smart egomaniac Mr. Stark, his friend and shadow as of late, the subtly volatile Dr. Banner, the quiet patriot and beloved super soldier, Steve Rogers, and it was a full blown party complete with balloons and streamers.
Sarah lay on the couch in her midtown Manhattan apartment, her file opened across her face to shut out the light of the small table lamp on the stand beside her, a small calico cat draped across the middle of her stomach. At this time of day, her ritual would usually consist of a hot bath followed by a warm supper and a glut of paperwork with the television on mute while she played up and down with Mr. Whiskers who insisted on making her lap his personal comfort zone every evening, but the words of Director Fury still echoed in her head. "Ms. Miller, you have come to us at a very serious juncture, there are new developments taking place and you will be meeting new..." Here, Fury had hesitated with a slight smile, "..people, you will have a window to a world most others can never dream of. I hope you're up to the task." Of course she had smiled in return and nodded enthusiastically, maybe a bit over the top but facing your boss was daunting enough, never mind that he kept his one eye trained on you like a searchlight into your soul. She'd left his office that day feeling like he had read everything she had been thinking as effortlessly as if it had been written across her forehead in neon lights.
The commendations she'd received from the Secret Service in Washington had propelled her to this new assignment or so she'd been told. To herself, she didn't particularly stand out among her fellow servicemen. She considered herself a crack shot with her service revolver and her paperwork was always impeccable, evenly spaced, smudge free, in triplicate..but that didn't seem a qualification in an organization such as this and she hardly believed the office workers were in need of a special agent to make sure the contents of their inbox and outbox stayed separate. More likely she was sure she would wind up as a go-fer for one of the labs, an expendable.
She lifted the folder from her face and glanced over at the tv where the 11 o' clock news was winding down. Yet another story about the day a hole had opened up in the sky above the Big Apple nearly a year ago and yet another reason why she wasn't sure she could sleep the night before her big first day at the office, then again, it wouldn't do to fall asleep standing up tomorrow morning either. She groped blindly beside the couch for the remote to the tv, causing Mr. Whiskers to stand up and stretch on her stomach, she caught him before he could reposition himself and set him on the floor where he sat blinking, his indignance at this upset visible in the rattlesnake movement of his tail. She shut off the tv, set the folder on the kitchen counter and shuffled into the bedroom, the cat at her heels.
She had bought a pants suit two days previously and now she held it up in front of herself as she stood before the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Her dark brown hair had been pulled up in a bun all day and now bore the evidence in waves on her shoulder. She studied her face, her deep brown eyes, her small nose, a blessing since her grandparents straight from the mother country had long, strong Roman features, nose included, her round face and the dimples that punctuated it when she smiled. She had always been petite, frequently accused of being younger than she really was which, at 39, was still a plus in her book. "Perhaps", she mused, aloud, "this is why I'm a good agent...because I sure hell don't look like one." She draped the pantsuit on the chair at her dressing table and crawled into bed narrowly avoiding Mr. Whisker's premature launch into bedroom orbit as she flung the covers aside. Sleep took her surprisingly quick and it seemed as if just moments had passed when the alarm clock sliced it's way through her fitful dreams in which an angry Mr. Fury had towered above her, ten feet tall with hands on his hips while a giant disco ball rotated above his head. Sarah rolled over on her back and sighed, wondering just how long this day would turn out to be.