Out in the hallway, I wondered how many students we were going to meet today. Luckily Xavier had spared Barton and I of meeting another student, and we had left as the boy arrived. As we were led to our rooms, Barton and Xavier walked ahead, and I let them. I was pissed at him for not including me; I would have expected he would have included me. I had many perks looking the way I did, I had often used my looks as an advantage on missions. But there were other times, like this, where my appearance caused people to underestimate me. However, though sure that this was part of it, I suspected that there was more to my exclusion from the conversation: my past. I was getting the feeling that nobody trusted me here, considering everyone but the girl, Jasmine, had bypassed me and leeched onto my more trustworthy looking partner. As we reached my new room, I shut the door firmly, making sure he could pick up the signals with the loud slam echoing down the hall. My hand still on the doorknob, I had to keep myself from punching the wall, bitter at the unfairness of it all.

The next two days were ridiculously boring. Everyday felt like the same exact thing over and over. I still wasn't comfortable around my new partner; I realized I hadn't even spoken to him once outside of S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters. There was no casual conversations like the ones friends had, and I scolded myself for thinking that that was what Barton was. Even when we were outside work, that was the only topic we stayed on, except for the car ride before our first mission. That had been painfully awkward. So the time at Xavier's hadn't exactly been a cakewalk.

And then, the nightmares began again.

As I lay my head down on my pillow, I looked up at the white ceiling. I tried to put my mind at ease, but thoughts still raged in my brain. An hour later, fatigue finally began tugging my eyelids. I looked at the walls, which I could have sworn had been blue, and were now blood red. And then, the world blurred and sleep collapsed onto me.
I was in a room. The room itself wasn't red, but I knew how it got its name. The cracked cement floor to the ancient stone that held the ceiling beams in place was oozing an essence of hurt. An essence of pain and death. I was on my knees, and I couldn't move any part of my body. I couldn't feel any handcuffs or bindings, but it was as if I had lost every bit of control of my physical being. Then I found myself looking in a puddle of filthy water, and the person in the reflection was a 12 year old me. My red hair hung limp down to my earlobes. My skin was etched with burns and cuts, scrapes and bruises. And then I heard footsteps. I saw Barton standing in front of me, expressionless, when a crowd of people with blurred faces appeared around us. Barton suddenly began to turn red, as did the crowd of people around us. The scarlet seemed to cover everything, creeping up the walls and stretching across the floor. It was closing in around me at all sides, and eventually started to spread up my knees. The moment it touched my skin, pain exploded in my body, and I realized it wasn't the hurt of a punch, or a gunshot wound.
It was worse. Regret, and guilt washed over me. I felt nothing but utter remorse, until I couldn't remember anything before that.
Then I woke up.
My hair was damp with sweat, as was my skin. A sob escaped my mouth but I silenced it. The walls were blue again, ad a cool breeze from the ceiling fan. I tried to stop the sting of tears welling in my eyes, so I closed them. I didn't fall asleep again for the rest of the night.