Thank you to those who are following and have favorited "Clandestine". And big thank you to hyourin-kusabana for reviewing the first chapter.

There's a little background info about my OC in this chapter, too. :)

Enjoy!

Chapter 2 - Pre-Avengers Part 2

March 27th, 2011

I take a deep breath and look around. To my right the woman's lifeless eyes stare at me, an arrow embedded deep in her chest. To my left, maybe thirty feet away, is a floor to ceiling window and behind that window is the fire escape.

The fire escape I parked my bike near.

My escape.

I knew I was fast enough to make it there, fast enough to run down the six flights of stairs, hop on my bike and get the hell out of here. My only problem is this guy was using arrows. The burning and wetness on my arm told me that he had damn good aim, too.

Think, think, think. See the situation, find the answer, confront the problem.

But it was too risky to hope to be fast enough not to get hit, again. If I'm going to make it to my bike, I have to take this guy out first. He killed the woman in cold blood, without asking questions, so he isn't one of hers. The fact the he is using arrows as his choice of weapon quickly tells me two things: that he relies on his vision and probably hearing most of all so what I need to do was take away those two things. Then I can make my escape. And I didn't have to kill him, which, for me nowadays, is a plus.

I reach over the desk and fire until my weapon clicks on empty while at the same time moving closer to my exit. I change my mag out, wincing at the pull on my arm, then reach in to my jacket pocket for a small device.

"Don't make this harder on yourself! Surrender now!" he evenly, forcefully.

Like I'm about to do that!

"Surrender has never been part of my vocabulary!" I throw my flash grande over the desk right before I emptied ten rounds into the window. When I hear the familiar pop! of the device I take off in the direction towards the window, shielding my face with my arms as I crashed through the cracked glass, groaning as my body slammed into the railing. Behind me I hear the man groan himself as he stumbled and cursed around in the office.

I run.

I take two or more steps at a time, slipping once on a patch of ice and twice more as I glanced above me to see if I am being followed. I landed with a crash on the second to last landing. The metal of the fire escape creaked above me from the weight of the man pursuing me at a very fast pace.

I can see my bike through the thickening sheets of snow, it was less than twenty feet away and I started it remotely. Ten feet away. I look over my shoulder again, see the arrow that was aimed at me. Six feet. I turned back around, threw my leg over the seat and revved the engine, shooting down the alley way and into the empty street.

A second later a yell escaped from my mouth just as I turned the corner, a fire like pain engulfed my right side. I looked down and saw that the arrow had cut through my jacket and the area just above my hip. I can feel the blood seeping through, can feel is running down my side and knew I couldn't go much further before I passed out from blood loss.

Placing my hand over the wound, I tell myself that I need to find a place to lie low until I could leave the country.

"What do you mean she's gone?"

"I mean she's gone, got away, not here anymore. She used those same flash grenades like the first time we met her; 'cept this one emitted a higher pitched noise. Slipped right out."

"Are you all right, Agent Barton?"

"Fine. Ears are ringing a little, but the flash didn't affect me. I did clip her a couple of times but in this storm it'll make finding her again hard."

"Track her any other way you can. What can you tell me about the professor?"

"Nothing useful. All of her IDs here are fake; I sent a photo for the techs do to a facial rec, they should have something in a few hours."

"Okay. Do what you can there then come back to the Hellicarrier for a debrief."

"Copy that."

To say that my day hadn't gone well... well, let's just say that it hadn't gone well. Other than my one lead ending up dead, a group of some kind now on my ass, I was back to square one. And square one sucked.

I need to find a place to take shelter. After I stop to get medical supplies. Purchasing said medical supplies wasn't easy; my paling face, rain and snow soaked body and blood stained side surely made me stick out more than I wanted or needed at this point. I cursed myself for not making time to stock up on supplies. When I had what I required I left money on the counter before the shop owner could ask any questions. (Or call the police.)

I drive through the storm until the pain becomes too much. My vision is dancing and I'm shivering from everything but the freezing cold. Two signs of blood loss and a fever. I spot a motel sign and make my way to a room that hadn't been cleaned yet. I empty the contents of my bag onto the bed and ease out of my blood stained jacket and shirt.

Three painstakingly long hours later, my side and arm were cleaned, stitched and bandaged. I wonder if either will scar, but not for long. There are more important things to worry about. Right now I just have to wait; they'll heal soon enough.

It had taken a lot out of me and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into the unmade bed and sleep for days. After I scouted the area around the motel, I deemed it safe enough to get a couple hours of sleep. Before dawn, I'd move out again to one of my safe houses on the coast where I would be able to rest longer and do some more research, where I'd make my next move.

It was the middle of the night when I found that I would not be able to get to sleep. My watch read after five, today is Sunday. It's the 28th and if I play my cards right, I can be back in the US by Wednesday evening at the latest.

I shower-oh, man that shit hurt!- and got dressed in an extra set of clothes and erased any trace that I was ever in that room. The sheets with specks of blood, my old and worn clothes, were trashed and burned and I wiped everything I touched down with a towel. Grabbing my helmet and bag, I headed for the door, eager to get back to the states but disappointed that my European trip proved fruitless.

Before I get on the road, I stop at a run down diner close by the motel. I couldn't remember the last time I actually ate something that wasn't packaged or dried; my stomach growled as soon as the smell of greasy food reached my nose.

Taking a booth near the back that was right by the door, I ordered a large cup of coffee and the breakfast special: two pancakes, two meats, probably bacon and sausage, eggs, hash browns, and orange juice.

So here I am, waiting, something I don't like doing because it makes be feel vulnerable. With nothing else to do but look over my shoulder every minute I take this opportunity to update my tablet of my... condition.

Its a long story, one that I still don't understand. And ever since I escaped back in December, I had made sure to write down everything that happens so that, one day, when I find someone who can help me understand it, they'll have all the information they need so that they can find a way to get rid of it.

It started in the late winter of 2006, a week or so after my 18th birthday. Or the day that was designated as my birthday per one Agent 27. That's what the guards there were called, by numbers. One through who the hell knows. And those on the lower end of the food chain, like myself at the time, were called by letters. I was only known as K. (People in the labs, for some odd reason, preferred to call us by numbers, so I was Eleven.)

On that lower food chain there were 26 of us total. 20 men and six women, all between the ages of 18 and 22 at the time. I was the youngest, by given birth date, out of everyone. All of us were raised from a young age to be the best assassins that (unknown) organization had ever seen the likes of.

(We were told that we were born at that base, but as I got older I knew that to be a lie. We were in Russia and, after listening to some doctors talk, I learned that I am American. Just something else I am looking into.)

From childhood we were trained in different military combat fighting styles, foreign fighting styles, marksmanship and some other things that I'd much like to forget how to do. We learned to speak different languages, too. All the necessities to being an assassin were there for us to learn.

That first week after my birthday we had a six day training exercise that would determine if we were strong enough for an experiment of some kind. They called it Project: Alpha. It was the best kept secrets in that entire organization; only two doctors knew what was going on at all times and would consider which persons would work best.

Really, at the time, I didn't think I had much of a chance to be considered but I still loved a good challenge; giving anything my all was second nature to me. The youngest of the group, plenty of men to choose from, the odds were against me from the beginning and I was okay with that. I was fine training, working to be a field agent like 27.

But those above me had other plans.

Between the time my test scores were turned in and the time those two doctors came and got me in the middle of the night, I was convinced that I hadn't been chosen. They proved me wrong.

"You were in the top three, K" they said. "G and X also qualified."

That didn't really affect me. I didn't care about those two. I still couldn't figure out how I had gotten chosen. Then they told me a couple of reasons.

The first reason had to do with my brain. When I was a child, I was told that I had an eidetic or photographic memory. Being five or six, that meant nothing to me but then, I began to understand what they were saying. Because of this I was able to memorize my way through a building or forest with ease. I didn't have to reply on maps or directions like all of the others had and I picked up things around me faster, like fighting techniques and weapons training.

Next was my size. I stand at 5 feet 10 inches but I'm also on the skinny side. Not unhealthy, just natural. They found it 'fascinating', they're words, not mine, that I could hold my own against most of the others in a hand-to-hand fight. Even though I was trained well enough, they were still shocked.

I know there was more that they said after that, but I didn't catch it as I was being poked and prodded as other doctors prepped me for the experiment.

Yeah, talk about not wasting time.

I drift off when I notice that my food is growing cold; I'll have to finish this later. So I remove my tablet from my backpack, opened my notebook and typed down these four words, "Four months, no usage." and take a large bite of my eggs.

"Looks like you've got a lot on your mind there."

I freeze.

That voice; I've heard it before, four months ago in a snow covered field just after I escaped. "I've giving you a chance to change." was what the man told me. "But I will kill you if you turn my offer away," is what I got instead.

To this day I still hear his voice sometimes, mocking me as if I made the wrong choice by not taking his offer to join his secret organization. Promising that he'd find me and kill me.

"So, you do remember me. I can see it in your eyes." a man dressed in all black, complete with a trench coat, sat down across from me. I looked up as saw an eyepatch covering his left eye. "That means we can skip the unnecessary formalities."

"What do you want?" I said lowly. In my left hand I clutched the butter knife, never letting my eyes leave the man. I didn't like how he was able to sneak up on me; even though my mind was in other places, I could always sense when someone was coming.

"I want a lot of things. And I know that you do as well." he leaned back against the booth, his one good eye looking intently at me. "SHIELD has been on your trail since Russia. It took us awhile to find you again; that was my man you went up against yesterday."

I scoffed. "Well, your man killed my only informant. If I see him again, it won't end very well for him."

"You know that woman wasn't going to give you anything. It was a dead end, just like in Rome, Berlin, Barcelona, Milan. You've left a lot of bodies behind, K. Did you think that that would go unnoticed?"

Those people were alive when I left them. I couldn't be the killer I was born, made, to be anymore. But I will if I have to.

"Don't. Do not call me that."

"What am I suppose to call you then? You don't know who you are, your name or what to do with your life and your hunting people that you think has answers about your very mysterious past." Eye-Patch leaded in closer, eye narrowed. "Come with me. SHIELD has everything you could possibly need to continue your search... and no one else has to die. Not to mention," he pauses and glances around. "we can help with your condition. Isn't that what you call it?"

I snap. Reaching over the table with lightning quick speed, I gather the front of his shirt and jacket in my right hand and held the butter against his neck, right on top of an artery.

I could kill him now for asking questions, for knowing too much about me, for following me. But I don't. I don't because I want answers. "How do you know about that?" I whispered into his ear, ignoring the looks the diner staff shot my way. "Who are you!"

"We're a special organization who can help people like you. We can keep you safe. There are people after you who-"

"I don't need protection. I don't want to join your group. I don't need help. Stay. The hell. Away from me." I shove him back and made for the door, before he could make a move on me. My bag is on my back and I just slide my helmet on, throwing my leg over my bike. I rev the engine, ready to peel out when I caught his last words.

"To show you that I mean well, I won't tell anyone that I found you. There's a folder on your bike that I think you'll want to look at before you reach the states."

Hope you liked this chapter. Review are greatly appreciated.

Chapter 3: "My name is Agent Phil Coulson. I'm with SHIELD. Director Fury sent me."