She's not sure that she's ever been quite this… angry.

That's it, isn't is? Anger? That's what she's feeling? Through the awful haze of disappointment, the murky shroud of disdain, the thick fog of rejection… what Sarah Atkinson really, truly feels right now – more than anything else – is anger. Deep, fiery, and true.

It's not as though Sergeant Barnes had ever really been hers to begin with, nor had she been fool enough to believe that there was much chance he ever would be. Well, not much chance. Hell, that was a big part of the attraction – in the beginning, at least – that challenge, the adventure of pursuing an unavailable man.

But… unavailable?

Was he really so in love with Dr. Sullivan that he would never leave her? He never even talked about her! He'd never even mentioned – not to anyone on the support team – anything about being in a relationship, let alone being engaged. And then all of a sudden they're married? That ridiculous, fucking, secret wedding?!

Granted, Sarah hadn't had a ton of experience with love herself – she hadn't had much luck with it, if she were being honest. But she knew… she knew that if what they had was real love, Sergeant James "Bucky" Barnes would've been screaming it from the rooftops, not keeping it hush-hush even from the people he worked the most intimately with.

Right?

Her fuming pace stalls as she barks out a sudden, "Dammit!" the word echoing off the empty walls of her dorm room. She spins on a heel and takes in the still-packed rucksack she'd thrown to the bed just after arriving back from Yukon… just after being told that Dr. Sullivan had been found. A bright blush blooms across her face as she tries – and fails – to hold in her frustration. "Fuck!"

Sure, the Sarge had been taking his sweet-ass time getting over his lost love. But she was certain that he was going to come around. If anything, Sarah could tell just by looking, that he was far more lost in his own guilt and regret than actual grief over the loss of his wife. He just needed a bit of time to work out how to forgive himself, how to… let go. Then he'd be able to see… see her standing right in front of him, with her arms open wide.

They had been so damn close.

Her eyes ping wildly about, taking in the dull gray walls of the dormitory. Each member of the support team has his or her own room on the eastside of the Avengers compound – just close enough to be able to make it to training on time at the ass crack of dawn everyday, but not so close that those living in the main building have to deal with anyone infringing on their space. The support team is expected to stay at the compound throughout of much of the year, taking on deployments lasting anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. But they aren't able to actually live here. No, only the Avengers can live at the Avengers Compound.

Frankly, it's asinine. They risk their lives just much as the others. They give just as much of themselves to the job as the Avengers. But they're still – always – referred to simply as adjacent personnel. They are the support team and nothing more.

No wonder Sergeant Barnes finds it so difficult to see her as anything other than that… anything more than just Agent Atkinson.

She lets out a harsh-sounding huff and shoves her bag aside so she can drop down to the edge of her bed. There's a thick burning sensation behind her eyes, an almost blinding pressure building, building, and then finally releasing in a torrent of hot, salty tears.

It's just all so… everything is just…

A small squeak of a sob escapes her, one she quickly attempts to suck back up through a snotty-sounding snort. The truth is, she never meant for any of this to happen. Not really. There isn't a bad bone in Sarah's body. She's not a bad person. And she's never truly wished harm on anyone. Even now – despite the anger and frustration and disappointment – she doesn't want Dr. Sullivan to suffer. She had never wanted that. She just wanted her… gone.

And he knew that. Somehow, that spastic little man – the not-at-all-intimidating doctor they'd spent so long searching for – knew, just by looking at her, what she most wanted in this whole world. He knew exactly what she needed. Aaron Scofield had looked her in the eye and he read – not just her thoughts – somehow, he read her.

He told her that he could fix everything. All she had to do was help them to set something up with Dr. Sullivan. Just a… meeting. And then – he promised – she'd be out of her life forever.

More importantly, she'd be out of Sergeant Barnes' life forever.

Forever. It was supposed to be forever.

A loud knock sounds at her door, pulling her from her thoughts with a sudden start as a quick gasp catches in her chest. She harshly scrubs at her face, working to wipe away all traces of tears, and takes the few long strides across the room to swing open the door.

She's met with the shining, smiling face of none other than Clint Barton, Hawkeye himself. "Sarah, right?" he inquires with a lilt as he easily brushes past her and into her room. "I don't think we ever officially met." He does a quick glance around the place before spinning back to face her, extending his hand in greeting. "Clint Barton."

"Yeah," she mutters, snuffling a bit as she reaches out and shakes his hand. "Yes, sir. I know."

He grips her tight… and doesn't let go. His eyes narrow and he cocks his head curiously to the side. "You alright?" he asks, voice slow and careful. "You look like you've been crying."

She tugs her hand from his grasp and quickly swipes at her face again. "Allergies," she mutters. "I have really bad allergies."

"Ah," he intones thickly, eyes bouncing around the room in search of somewhere to sit. The only chair is covered in piles of clothes, so he opts for simply plopping down on the edge of her bed – a clear indication that he doesn't plan on taking off anytime soon. "So," he drawls out. "Sarah…"

"Yeah," she repeats, brow furrowing in puzzlement for a moment before she catches herself and again corrects with, "Yes, sir." She clears her throat, swallowing back all the remaining tears and stuffing down the bitter anger and frustration, burying the emotions as deeply as possible. "What can I do for you?"

"You don't need to call me sir," he tells her with an easy smile. "I'm technically still retired. Not really an Avenger anymore."

"Okay," she mutters blandly.

He lets out a long, deep sigh. "I just came back to help out… with finding Doc." He gives her a wary side-eye glare and clarifies, "Dr. Sullivan."

She nods – "Yeah, of course." – and moves over to the chair in the corner, carefully removing the pile of neatly folded clothes and placing them on the floor before taking a seat. "Well, we're all glad she's back home. Safe," she announces, the painful lie causing bile to rise into her throat.

Clint's lips pull tightly together, head bobbing in a pensive manner. "Yes, we are." He stares at the woman before him for a long moment before asking, "You know her well?"

"Well?" Her voice cracks just the slightest bit as she shakes her head. "No. Not well. I had my final physical with her, before getting cleared to join the team. But that's really the only time we've spoken. Other than a couple of debriefs."

"But Barnes," he starts, small, suspicious scowl building. "You know him pretty well, huh?"

"I don't… what do you mean?"

"Didn't Cap put him in charge of the support team?" he replies, voice easy. "You've worked together for a while."

She shrugs – "Yeah, I guess so." – and lets out a small laugh. "Sergeant Barnes isn't one you really get to know. I mean… he's a pretty private person."

His eyes narrow at her again. "I know him pretty well," he says, tone slow and methodical. "Doc too. I've spent holidays with them. Went to their wedding. Hell, we saved the world together." Atkinson's head quirks to the side, brows pulling together at his final comment. But if he notices her confusion – or intrigue – he doesn't show it. Instead he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he finishes with, "But I don't know you."

She blinks at him, unsure what to say. Her lips part, but only a small, "Um," falls from them.

Clint clears his throat and his shoulders unknot, face relaxing back into that same almost jocular expression he wore a moment ago. "I heard you had something going with Scofield's old partner… what was his name?"

"Stanley Markum," she states, voice sounding far meeker than she ever intended.

He nods – "Yeah, Markum." – and lights back onto her eyes. "Steve said nothing came of it. And now the guy's in the wind?"

"That's right. About a week after Dr. Sullivan's disappearance he emptied his accounts and took off."

"Kidnapping," he corrects. When she shoots him a confused glower, he goes on to say, both brows raised high, "Dr. Sullivan didn't disappear. She was taken."

"Right," she clips out amid a definitive nod. "Yes. Sorry."

He leans forward a little bit more, winding his fingers together and clenching them tight – so tight that his worn knuckles go white. "Did you hear about what happened to Dr. Scofield?" he asks, voice completely steady, betraying none of the building intensity his physical demeanor bears.

She nods. "I heard… We were told that he was killed in the raid. At the site in Yukon."

"That's right," he mutters with a slow nod of his own. "But do you know what happened to him?"

Again, her face puckers, brows tangling in confusion. "No," she replies. "No, I guess I don't know what exactly happened."

Clint's bright blue eyes bore into her, a peculiar threatening quality shining just beneath the surface. "Barnes ripped out his throat," he tells her without preamble. He untwists his fingers and raises a single hand in front of her, grasping at the air as he says, "One hand… the metal hand. Just – " He thrusts his hand forward and mimes a quick grab and twist.

Sarah inadvertently lets out a small gasp. "I didn't… I didn't know that."

He slowly nods his head, pensive look rolling over his features. "Shame really," he mumbles as his gaze ticks off towards nothing. "We could've gotten so much out of him." He shrugs – "Maybe. – and returns his gaze to her uneasy face. "I bet he would've talked, though," he tells her, small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Considering how much he was willing to share before Barnes and Rogers got there… how much he told us in just those few minutes…" He nods again, never breaking eye contact with her. "Yeah, I bet he would've told us everything."

Her eyes tick nervously away as a small shudder ripples through her body. "That is a shame," she mutters, struggling to keep her voice level.

His lips purse tightly together and his eyes slowly trace down her body – then back up again – intently studying every aspect of the slight blonde. "You ever been married, Sarah?" he asks, his tone light and engaging despite the cautious look on his face.

She shakes her head. "No, sir, I haven't."

"Got a serious boyfriend? Some lucky guy out there somewhere?"

Again, "No."

He nods, narrowed eyes continuing an eerie sort of appraisal. Then he pulls in a long breath, face relaxing into a coy countenance, one brow raised as he inquires, "You got your eye on someone, though, huh?"

A quick, nervous laugh spills unbidden from her lips. "Well… no. I mean, I think maybe I'm too busy… They keep us pretty busy around here."

Another nod, another assessing look. "You ever been in love?"

She pulls in a short breath and very nearly chokes on it.

Her sputter causes Clint to chuckle. "I'll take that as a maybe," he says, voice alight with amusement. He clears his throat and lets the smile melt from his face. "I know that Sergeant Barnes loves Dr. Sullivan – Dr. Barnes," he corrects himself. "He'd do anything for her. I knew – long before seeing him rip Scofield apart – that he'd kill for her. He'd tear a person in two just for…" He drops his gaze, a quick, almost bashful snigger spilling from him before he looks up again, not a trace of mirth on his face. "Not a doubt in my mind that he'd do it again too… if pushed…"

He slowly rises from the edge of the bed, looming now over the small woman. "Truth is – if it came down to it – any one of us would do the same. Maybe not like that. You gotta have a special kind of fire to do something that… extreme. You gotta be made to hurt to want to hurt someone like that. But not a one of us would hesitate to take a life if it meant saving one of our own. Not me or Wilson or Stark… Romanov sure as shit wouldn't hesitate. Even the great and noble Captain America would kill for Doc." He shrugs vaguely. "We'd die for her too. And she'd do the same for us." He takes a single long stride forward, his strongly set shoulders now blocking out the light and throwing her into shadow. "Because we're family."

She pushes her chair back the slightest bit, the feet squeaking along the floor, so that she can rise to stand before him. "I get that you are family," she says, voice clipped but firm. "But we're not. The rest of us, we're just… support."

His expression hardens as he looks down at her. "Is that what you think?"

Her eyes briefly tick away, a momentary look of regret flashing across them before washing clean away and getting replaced by an icy stare. "This is a job, Agent Barton."

He nods slowly and steps around her to get to the door. Dropping his hand to the knob, he turns and looks her dead in the eye. "Just for the record," he starts, voice soft and low. "We'd kill for you too. Any one of us. We'd die for you. Even Barnes would… and you can't pretend like that that doesn't mean something to you." A look of utter disappointment – perhaps even grief – settles into his features. "Job… family… doesn't matter what you call it. Fact is, if you show us loyalty, you get it in return. And if you don't… if you sell one of us out… hurt one of us… Well, hopefully you'll never have to see what that gets you."

000

As soon as he makes it back to the main building, Clint heads to the tech wing where Vision's been hunkered down for the past few weeks, steadily working to decode the plethora of footage and files pulled from both the Yukon and Nunavut sites. While nearly all of the team has spent hours upon hours down there – trying not to go blind while digging through archives and not-quite-fully-decrypted docs – everyone knows it's Vis who's responsible for getting them to where they are now. Thanks to his ability to keep going without food or sleep they've managed to get into nearly half of the files from Nunavut in just over a week.

Clint enters the predominately dark room and frowns, surprised to see that Vision is the only one there. "Where's the rest of your crew?" he asks before dropping heavily into a seat in front of one of the computers.

Without looking up, Vision replies simply with, "Impromptu pizza party." When he gets no response from the man to his right, he glances up and takes in Clint's questioning look. "Wanda thought that perhaps, if everyone were to gather together in the common area for pizza, then Sergeant Barnes would be compelled to join and they could be certain that he would eat."

"I love it when everyone comes together to coddle one of the super soldiers," he says, shaking his head fondly. "Gives me that warm, tingly feeling deep down inside."

"Yes, well, I imagine that Sergeant Barnes has returned to Dr. Sullivan's room by now anyway." He stops short and stiffens in his seat. "Dr. Barnes," he corrects, a hint of frustration to his tone. "I just can't seem to get used to that."

Clint snickers a bit under his breath. "So, how far are we here? Nat said you got into the intake files?"

He nods. "We did, yes. Though… well, there are quite a few. Over one hundred so far. And we've yet to find Dr. – " His voice trails off uncertainly.

"Just call her Tessa," he says with a chuckle. "Or Doc."

"Doc," he repeats, drawing the word out and rolling it on his tongue to evaluate the feel. "Hm."

Clint scoots up close to the desk in front of him and logs into the computer. "What about accounts… or notes kept by the staff? Maybe personal files? Or even just personnel records?" he asks cautiously. "Find anything like that?"

"Yes, actually. It appears that both the site in Nunavut and the one in Yukon ran off of a shared database. Between all that was pulled from both systems, we have been able to decipher quite a bit, including various links between personnel records and archives created by those individuals."

"Anything on Scofield?"

"Well, there are several files actually. We were able to obtain his identifiers, so we can tell which documents were logged by him… I'm assuming that's what you're looking for?" Clint nods stiffly. "Our focus thus far has been on the lab records and files on the subjects, though. We believe that's where we'll find the most information about any experiments performed. So… I haven't delved very deeply into any of the files that looked to be… of a more personal nature."

He nods slowly as he absently clicks around in the newly created folders where the team had moved the most recently decrypted files. "I get that," he mutters blandly.

Vision turns to face him and gives him an assessing look. "Would you like for me to send you the files logged by Dr. Scofield?"

He glances up and connects eyes with the android, sees a spark of understanding in his gaze. "Yeah," he nods. "Send them my way."

"Are you looking for something… specific?" he asks as he rather quickly shoots the requested files through the interface.

Clint's jaw tightens, lips pursing a bit as he watches the documents transfer over to his desktop. "Yeah, actually."

"Anything I could help with?" He turns in his seat to face the man beside him, cocks his head inquisitively. "In an attempt to eliminate having to read through all of the decoded documents – as it appears that takes fairly long for the rest of you to do – I have begun running an advanced algorithm designed to search for certain words and phrases." He frowns a bit and spins back to his station. "Of course, it will only work once the initial decryption is complete, and there are many files that have not yet been decrypted."

Clint looks at him from the corner of his eye and smiles genuinely. "You've been doing a great job, man. You know that, right?" Vision slowly turns back towards him, a look of confusion on his face that serves to pull a small chuckle from the archer. "I mean it. No way could we have made it through all of this crap without you." He drops a hand to the android's shoulder and gives him a firm pat to emphasize his thanks.

"Yes, well," Vision starts, gaze traveling back to the computer screen in front of him. "There's still much to be done."

"Yeah," he mutters, turning back to his own screen and pulling up the files. "So how does this algorithm work? I can just give you keywords and…"

"Any records found to contain them – or words or phrases deemed similar in nature – will open. Here," he says, leaning over and quickly typing away on Clint's keyboard. He pulls up a program – little more than a search box, really – and hands the reigns back over. "Just drop in the files you'd like to search and enter in the words or phrases you're looking for."

He leans back and stretches out his arms, threads his fingers together, and loudly cracks his knuckles. "Alright. This kind of research I can do."

"Is there anything you'd like for me to enter into the database we've created?" Clint gives him a perplexed sort of pout. "Is there anything you'd like to search for throughout all of the decrypted files?" he clarifies.

His brows knit tightly together as he thinks on it for a moment. Then, turning back to his work, he gives a quick, tight nod. "Atkinson," he says, voice soft but biting. "Informant," he proposes as well. Then, after a brief moment of thought, "Snake," gets added to the list.

Vision merely nods, making no comment about either the short list of terms or the sudden edge to his companion's demeanor. "If anything matches, it'll be sent to your desktop shortly."

The more focused search he does of just Scofield's files yields results in less than a minute. There's nothing on Atkinson, but that was really just a pipe dream anyway. Even if Clint's suspicions are right and Sarah Atkinson is the snake in our grass, Scofield may not have actually known her to be Sarah Atkinson. And if he did, he may not have recorded her name in any of his files.

He does get hits for Avengers and informant though. And Sullivan as well. A lot of hits. So damn many hits. A long, low sigh escapes him, his shoulders hunching as he sets to reading through what looks to be upwards of a hundred pages of documentation.

But the moment he scrolls down to page two – the first appearing to be little more than a roster of names – the screen blinks out in front of him. He flicks irritably at the computer – as though that might actually do something – and then notices the light in the corner of the room begin to flicker. He and Vision both turn toward the lamp and watch as it sputters widly for a few seconds before the bulb burns bright and pops, the sound of it blowing out occurring in time with a booming clap of thunder.

"What the hell?!" Clint exclaims, the sudden noise causing him to jolt and jump up from his chair.

They both look cautiously around the room, now bathed in dark with nothing more than the emergency lights from the hallway illuminating the space. It takes several seconds for one of the backup generators to kick on and bring the computers back up, their gentle whirring filling the otherwise silent room.

"Friday, can you tell us what has happened?" Vision asks, voice calm and collected.

The response is slow to come – the AI presumably taking a moment to both fully power back up and thoroughly assess the situation. When the lightly accented voice does finally speak, the declaration is simple. "Thor has returned."

Duh-duh-dunnn! Hey now, I know a lot of people are aching for Atkinson to get what's coming to her... but there's not a doubt in my mind that the Earth's Mightiest Heroes would give the benefit of the doubt to one of their own. So please be patient while Clint works to find proof of her treachery. And then... well, then we can all see just what betrayal of that magnitude gets a person.

In the meantime... Thor has returned!