November 12, 2007

"Did you know that Grant escaped from prison?" The brown eyed teenager glanced up at Jonathan and shrugged. Although her tone was nonchalant, the boy could see the anger and fear burning in her eyes.

He nodded slowly and glanced back down at his computer, trying to decide what to say. "Yeah, I did. Dad told me."

"What else did he tell you?" she asked, tugging on the ends of her sleeves.

Jonathan frowned a little. It was cold outside, sure, but not in here. He could see sweat beading on her forehead. "Are you hot?" he asked suddenly, reaching towards the thermostat on the wall behind her. "I can turn the air up if you—"

The girl shrank away from his hand, and he frowned. "No, I'm fine."

Samantha's previous comments about her brother were forgotten. Jonathan glanced at the hallway and leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Are you okay?"

Samantha nodded quickly. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired."

"Where'd you get that?" he asked, reaching over to point at her collar, where her sweater had slipped and a purple bruise had formed. You would've thought his hand was a snake. The girl fell out of the bed in her haste to get away from him, striking her shoulder on the corner of the table in the process. She landed in a tearful, crumpled heap beside his bed, not moving.

"Sam!" Jonathan leapt after her.

His father appeared in the doorway a moment later. "Samantha?" He crossed over to her and knelt down beside her, not touching her. She sat up after a moment, not meeting his eyes. "Are you alright?"

She nodded.

"I didn't know you were here." He reached for an unopened water bottle on his son's windowsill. "Are you working on a project?"

She nodded again.

"Alright. Stay here as long as you need, okay? And—" he hesitated. "And know that you can tell me anything, alright? Rosalyn and I—we're here for you, okay?"

She nodded, brown eyes filling with tears. "Okay."

May 7, 2012

Director Fury turned to me. "Agent Ward, I'm gonna need you to come with me."

I stood, keeping my gaze locked on the bloodstained patch of wall where I had just seen my handler die. The gash in my leg stretched, and I nearly fell over. The medic beside me caught me. He hadn't been able to do much besides binding my leg and wiping the blood off my face to check for head injuries, and there were too many smaller hurts for him to get to before I obeyed my orders.

"I need to debrief Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark. You were never intended to be a part of this team, but…" he shook his head. "I owe you an explanation. I'm sorry you got caught up in all this."

I nodded, numbly accepting his apology. He didn't seem to expect anything more, and was silent the remainder of the journey to the deck. When we reached our destination, I sank down into a chair at the round, glass table, Captain Rogers on my left. Tony Stark rested a hand on my shoulder in greeting and then moved to sit in the chair to Captain Roger's left. My medic went to go stand in the corner, apparently of too low a level of clearance to hear the conversation. Agent Hill stood within hearing distance, watching us silently.

Director Fury stood silent for a long time, staring at something in his hands. I watched the table, noting how silent everyone was. Coulson's death had cast a shadow over all of Shield. He finally spoke, not taking his eyes off the object in his hands. "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." Director Fury tossed the object—objects—onto the table towards Captain Rogers. They scattered, and something on them stained the glass red.

Coulson's trading cards. Captain Rogers picked one up and stared blankly down at the aged image of himself, now stained with blood. I took up the others and tried to rub the blood off, to no avail. It was then that I realized that my hands were too covered with blood to do any good. Captain Rogers, who noticed the blood but didn't care about getting it on his own hands, placed one of his hands over mine. His hand dwarfed my own. He gave me a sad little smile and gently took the cards from me. Without a word, he stacked them into a neat little pile and set them back onto the table. Stark ran a hand over his bruised face.

Director Fury watched our interaction and waited for it to end before he spoke again. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor… I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye." His voice broke a little, and he shook his head. "Maybe I had that coming. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea—Stark knows this—called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could." He paused for a moment. "Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

Stark stood abruptly at the last word of Fury's speech, his face twisting with suppressed emotion. He left the room before he could hear any more.

Fury waited a few moments in silence before he moved to leave, following Stark out the door. "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

Captain Rogers waited until the Director had gone before he spoke. "Are you alright?"

I considered lying but had a feeling that he would know, and I knew it would save time and effort on both our parts if I just told the truth. "No."

"Coulson was a good man," he said, staring despondently down at the cards.

"Yeah, he was." I tore my gaze from the cards and swallowed thickly. The man beside me—he looked terrible. His hair was mussed, and dark bags formed sickly crescents beneath his eyes. He wasn't in his uniform anymore, nor was he in his previous getup—he somewhere in between, a war-ravaged young man who had lost too much in too short a time. "Are you okay?"

A dry chuckle, barely more than an exhale, escaped his nose. His lips quirked humorlessly. "Am I okay," he mused. After a moment, he shook his head. "No, ma'am, I'm not."

For the first time, I saw the man behind the suit. This wasn't some invincible hero—he was just a man, and he was hurting.

"Is there anything I can do?" The words were out of my mouth before I could process them, but I wasn't ashamed of having asked them. He glanced at me in surprise but shook his head.

"No, ma'am, I don't think there is," he murmured, staring straight ahead. After a beat, he glanced at me again. "What's your first name, Agent Ward?"

"Sam—I mean, Samantha."

"And how old are you, Samantha?" he asked curiously.

"Nine—eighteen," I corrected myself, recounting the years. "I turn nineteen in July."

Captain Rogers nodded, then licked his cracking lips. His next words were slightly slurred, as though he didn't quite realize that he was speaking his thoughts aloud. "I turn ninety-two in July."

"You've aged well," I offered weakly.

A ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. "What is the worst thing that's happened to you?"

I felt my expression change, transforming my face into an emotionless mask. "A lot of bad stuff's happened to me," I finally murmured. "I don't have many good memories."

He studied me for a moment, taking in my mask and my fidgeting hands. "My dad died when I was six; Mom died when I was nineteen," he told me. "My best friend joined the army when I was twenty-two. I joined a year later. He died when I was twenty-four. I…" he hesitated. "I went under a few months later. Got woken up a few weeks ago."

"A few weeks ago?" I gasped, shocked. "Why—?"

"Doesn't matter. Point is… I've seen a lotta stuff in my life. Seen a lotta good people die." He looked down at the card that was still clutched in his hand. "It never gets any easier."

"Captain Rogers—"

"Steve, please," he interrupted.

"Steve," I tried again, testing out the name. I placed my hand lightly on his forearm. When I felt him tense, I lifted my fingertips from his arm, but he didn't pull away. "I'm sorry."

He nodded wearily. "Me too."

"Sam!"

Natasha barreled towards me as quickly as she could. Steve Rogers glanced her way and rose from his seat, leaving it open for her. She moved with a limp, keeping her weight off one foot more than the other. She stopped in front of me and looked me over, wild-eyed.

"It was nice talking to you, Samantha," Steve said. He nodded respectfully to Natasha before he left, probably to find Mr. Stark.

"I'm okay," I told Natasha, staring blankly over her shoulder at Steve as he left. Coulson's card was still between his fingers. She ignored my claim and proceeded to examine the rapidly forming bruises that covered almost my entire body. My arm was back in a sling, and my leg had been tightly bandaged by a medic whose uniform had been slightly charred by an explosion.

"You're not." She looked down at the table where Agent Coulson's trading cards had fallen. Blood was smeared across the decades-old paper, and passing agents were going out of their way to avoid looking at them.

"It's my fault he's dead," I deadpanned, keeping my eyes locked on that little deck of cards. "If I had hidden the scepter in time, or put up more of a fight—"

"Your first mission was less than two weeks ago," Natasha interrupted. "The first time you took a life was less than two weeks ago. You haven't even had time to sit down for a Psych Eval yet. You've been in training for less than six months."

"What's your point?"

Natasha gripped my chin and forced me to look at her, ignoring the objections from my medic, who was positioned nearby. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, her hair a mess. Her lip was busted, and there was a dark bruise on her hairline. Her tone reminded me how dangerous she was, and the reminded had a similar effect to that of an electric shock. I blinked. "My point," she growled menacingly, "is that no one in their right mind would have let you enter the field this early. Clint didn't want you in so soon, but a higher ranking agent overruled his decision. The only reason you were sent in after Clint is because Shield knows how much you mean to him. They thought you could wake him up, that backfired. The only reason you were sent away with the scepter is because there were no other options. All of this—" she gestured around the room, "is because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I swallowed and tugged my face free of her grip. "What happened to you?"

Her expression made it clear that she didn't appreciate the change in topic or the slight against her appearance. "Clint," she replied shortly, running a hand through her matted hair.

I sat up straighter in my chair. "He's here? Is he okay?"

"He's alive." The fight went out of her and she sat heavily in Captain Roger's vacated chair, rubbing her swollen ankle. "It'll be a long time before he's alright."

Suddenly the pain I was feeling didn't seem so important. I swallowed and sat up a little straighter, wincing as the cut on my leg knocked against the edge of my seat. "Can I see him?"

Natasha glanced at the nearby medic, who nodded. "Yeah. Come on." She helped me up, and together we limped back towards our quarters, each using the other as a crutch.

"Where are we going?" I asked, looking around. There was blood smeared all along the floors. Distorted handprints marked the walls. I shivered, spreading my bloody fingers out to avoid touching each other. Natasha pretended not to notice.

"Our room. Didn't you notice that there was an extra bed?" I nodded, fighting the bile that burned its way up my throat at the sight of the blood that I had spilled. "That one belongs to Clint."

Clint was awake when we finally reached the room. A large purple knot had formed above his eye where Natasha had hit him. He glanced up when the door opened, and he stood when he saw me, gasping in relief. "Hey, Sammie." He reached out and engulfed me in a bearhug. I froze for a moment, thrown off by the use of my childhood nickname and unsure of what to do—I hadn't been hugged like this in… well, ever. After a few stunned seconds, I awkwardly reciprocated the hug, wrapping my remaining arm around his chest and clutching a handful of his shirt.

"I'm so glad you're okay." I gasped, painfully aware of how tightly he was holding me, and he let go. Natasha helped him back to the bed.

Clint looked me over, and pain clouded his eyes. "Did I do this?" He gestured to all of me—the sling, the bandaged leg, the blood, the bruises.

"No," I replied quickly, shaking my head. "Not—not all of it."

He nodded quickly and swiped at his eyes. "Sam." He looked up and stared me straight in the eyes. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault." I shook my head firmly. "Loki was controlling you."

"Loki," he repeated the name, his face twisting with loathing and disgust. "He was on the Helicarrier. How many agents—"

"Clint." Natasha cut him off. "Don't do that to yourself."

He sighed and ran a hand over his cropped hair. "Yeah, I know." After a beat, he looked up, looking slightly more cheerful. "Nat, where's Phil? I need to speak with him about New Mexico." He glanced between the two of us, gaze lingering first on my pained expression and then on Natasha's blank one. "Nat?"

He turned his gray eyes on me. They were wide and confused, like a child's. "Sammie?"

My throat closed. I took a ragged breath and then stood and limped into the adjoining room. There was a sink there, and I turned the water on full blast till it blocked out almost all sound. It was painfully cold, but I relished the feel of it, and I scrubbed at my arms and face until my skin was raw. As hard as I tried, I couldn't block out the sound of Clint's scream of rage and pain; I couldn't block out the sound of his weeping.

I couldn't wash the blood from my hands.

"Sam. Sam."

Someone reached past me and shut the water off. Natasha stood there with one hand on the faucet, staring at me in concern. My S.O. was standing right behind her, watching me with bloodshot eyes.

"Sam," Natasha repeated, reaching out and touching my uninjured shoulder. "I told you. It wasn't your fault."

I looked past her at Clint. "When we get back to base, will you keep training me?" I asked. My voice cracked. Natasha left the room, giving me a moment of privacy with my S.O. "I wasn't strong enough this time, and—and I don't want this to ever happen again."

He nodded solemnly and then reached out and squeezed my hand. "Yeah, kiddo. I promise."

Something glanced across the mirror. "Captain Rogers?" I stepped out of the side room.

He nodded, acknowledging my presence, but kept his attention on Natasha. "Time to go."

She frowned, evidently not expecting to be pulled away from her partner so soon. "Go where?"

"I'll tell you on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?"

Clint stepped out of the bathroom and stood behind me. "I can."

Steve glanced at Natasha, and she nodded, affirming Clint's allegiance. "You got a suit?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

"Then suit up." Steve looked at me. "You're sitting this one out."

When I opened my mouth to protest, all three adults cut me off, but it was Clint whose soft voice rang louder than the others. "You're injured, you're unstable, you're too emotionally charged, and you're a liability," he stated flatly. "Hey," he added, taking in my crestfallen expression. "Knowing that you're here, out of harm's way—that's what's going to help Natasha and I. Besides—" he glanced at Natasha. "You haven't finished your training yet. Wait till graduation, then you can come fight some aliens with us."

I cracked a smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Captain Roger's shoulders relax in obvious relief. I glanced up at him. "You don't want a woman in the field?" I asked, tilting my head to one side. I was joking, but he didn't know that.

His cheeks burned with heat as Natasha turned to look at him as well. "No, ma'am, that's not it at all. I just don't want you in the field. You remind me of…" he trailed off, and his eyebrows creased together in a heartbreaking little frown, like he was trying to find a piece of information that wasn't there. "… of someone I once knew," he finished, obviously troubled.

"Good enough for me," Natasha stood and reached under the bed for her duffel. "We'll meet you at Hangar Six."

She glanced back at me as she and Clint moved to leave the room, leaving me behind. "Don't go back to the main deck," she advised me softly. "You don't have clearance. It's probably best that you don't know what's going on, where we're going." She slipped me a small glass tablet. "But just in case." She winked at me, but I could see the worry behind the twinkle in her eye. "We'll be back soon."