"Please don't tell me Steve thought this was a good idea," Sam groaned, as he looked down from the air at all the people milling around.

"Any ideas on how to find this one person in all this mess?" Clint wondered aloud.

"Well," Bucky mused, "I don't think they have any money."

"Wow, that was profound," Sam snorted.

"If the woman in the car had money, she would probably have chosen to use a payphone over making the car a sacrifice."

"No," Clint corrected, "the guy was the sacrifice; the car was the pyre."

"Whatever."

Changing the subject, Clint suggested, "Going on the theory that our mystery girl has no money, bless her soul, what are some places on the edge of town that someone could make money fast?"

"Shady alleyways?" Sam quipped. "Old motels?"

"Shut up," Clint groaned.

"It might be different now," Bucky began, "but can people still do a simple cleaning job and get paid for it?"

Clint shrugged and shook his head and the seeming hopelessness of the situation. "Sam, how's that scanner of yours doing? Is it still able to track her?"

"It's slowing down; all the traffic over it is distorting the radar's search."

"I thought that was 'high tech'?" Clint pointed out.

Before Sam could snap something back, Clint began, "Would she avoid crowds or embrace them?"

"That's a lot of random people to hug," Sam jibed; "Which is just creepy, but I personally think that she would go for the crowds."

"I'm not asking for personal opinion, I'm asking for a trained opinion."

"If she wasn't looking for a speedy escape, then she would keep it low to avoid detection, then move on," Bucky pointed out. "But as it seems she is trying to get out fast, she would do her best to appear normal, which means she will be going to more well-to-do places to get a change of outfit. With the right clothes and the right air, a good actor can fool pretty much anyone."

"So how do we know what we're looking for?" Clint asked.

"This isn't a 'what', this is a 'who'," Sam corrected.

"Where do we know to look?" Clint rephrased.

"Almost all the places we've passed wouldn't fit the description of 'well-to-do'," Sam commented, "So maybe—hold on," he stopped as he suddenly saw a mall. "Tracks lead in here," he said.

"Okay; Sam you stay outside and keep an eye on things," Clint said, "Bucky and I are going in."

"Fine, but if either of you needs help fighting a girl…I'll be glad to help."

"If she can kick my ass she can most certainly kick yours," Bucky retorted.


Abigail was a resourceful person, and she was willing to take chances. As she walked down the road, she made little detours into a couple of buildings, and when she was down with her moneyless shopping, she had an array of burner phones, a handful of SIM cards, and a few slender metal pieces that could pass as lock-pickers. She stood there for a long time in one store, thinking about a knife, but decided that her hand-to-hand skills array would have to do. She knew that a hat would be too obvious for people watching thru security cameras; because that would draw attention to an individual if they chose to 'hide' in such a cliched way indoors. No; she would just have to use her hands or hair to do the trick.

Abigail had been around a lot of different kinds of people, had a million different personalities, and an active imagination. Over the years, she had learned how to see her surroundings in different ways, and one of those was to look for cameras. Observing how well-to-do the buildings and area were would determine how well-to-do the cameras themselves would be if the cameras even existed. Also, paying attention to what was around you could tell you the direction the camera was facing in.

But, there was the problem of people. She couldn't just aimlessly wander, and she shouldn't just hang around corners; with the type of places she's been thru, that act labeled her as an undercover cop more than once. But she had no money to do anything. She had long since lost the gun Katelyn had given her, so pawning wasn't an option. Or...was it? She looked around at a couple of men lounging against the brick wall, one of them catching her eye and winking at her. She knew what Katelyn would do in this situation to get money, but Abigail wasn't there yet. She shook her head and walked on. But not without being followed.

One of the men took an interest in her and began to walk behind her, whistling at her every once in a while. Slowly, a devilish idea came to her, and she began to walk differently, knowing he was watching. Every once in a while, she would look over her shoulder at him, and give a little flutter with her eyelashes, as she lead him down to an empty alley. Once she turned the corner, she whisked herself behind a bin, and crouched there, waiting to attack. She watched as his smile grew when he realized he would have to look for her, and he crept along, whispering things that made her blood boil.

When he had walked past her, she lunged up and jumped on him, bringing him down to the ground with ease in a spinning maneuver that brought him down on his back, leaving his neck open for a fatal punch in the esophagus. While he gasped for breath, she went through his pockets and took all the money he had, which wasn't much, but it would have to do.

Standing, she glared down at the pathetic form gasping beneath her.

"If you want to treat women like playthings," she whispered, kneeling again. "That we're objects to simply be used then thrown away...be careful." She gave him a chilling smile. "Some of us are rather dangerous objects."


The next step in knowing how to 'survive' here was to understand how the people operated. In some places, people were really friendly, sometimes they didn't really talk, other times they all looked like sour-pusses. These people just seemed busy, which meant they would only say the necessary amount for the small-talk to be considered 'polite'; yet still treading on the border of 'rude'. She began to study the people that were around her and snickered as she saw that the uppity side of society was the majority here. North Face jackets, Starbucks, Escalades, and the rest of the shebang. But where to start looking like these people? The mall.


Carefully dealing out her bills, Abigail pieced together an outfit that blended in seamlessly with the rest. Now, it was a waiting game. She would need more money to catch a flight, but, more importantly, an identity. While she was in the middle of figuring this out, she saw a man walking along the wall, and on the opposite side, another man walking along the wall. Her pulse quickened, but not from fear. She knew who they were, and she knew that, if push comes to shove, she could handle them.


Clint was grateful that Tony had installed a tracer on his phone, and he blended in with the rest of the crowd with his eyes glued to the screen. He and Bucky were walking on opposite sides of the walkway, the latter studying each female face with a scrutiny that earned him several nasty looks from the men with them.

"The signal is getting stronger," Clint murmured, and they both began to look anew for the mystery girl. Clint had barely taken ten more steps when the signal showed its strongest; he was right by her. But yet he wasn't. He looked around, confused, as Bucky walked up to the bench beside him…and picked up a pair of shoes. He held them to the phone, and the signal again heated up.

"She's been playing with us," he muttered.

"For all she knows," Clint responded, "We're HYDRA mercenaries, so—it was probably a bad idea for you to be the one with me."

"Thanks for that."

Clint was about to say something when he froze. Someone, or what felt more like something, was watching him. About twenty feet away, a hooded figure stood directly facing him, in a stance that would seem normal, was it not for the hands clenching so tightly that when they released, blood trickled down the palm from the nails pressing so hard into the skin…and the eyes. He couldn't truly see them, but he most certainly could feel them. This person felt psycho.

"What do you think?" Bucky finished, having been discussing plans while Clint was in a staring contest with whatever that was.

"What were you looking at?" he said, and turned to see, but he only saw people doing their everyday things.

"We need to keep moving," Clint said abruptly as he walked off.

Ten more minutes passed, and no luck. When he noticed how people were starting to give him strange looks, he began to put them at ease by asking them where the café was. He wasn't interested in a coffee, but at least it seemed to give an aimlessly wandering man a reason to do so. People came and went by, buying different things. Some of the food names made him chuckle. A group of young people came up laughing, and after they left with their popcorn, one woman was left.

"You weren't expecting me to change my shoes," she murmured into her cup, smirking. He jumped and turned to look at her. Brown eyes brazenly gazed back. She straightened with a sigh and turned so her back was against the counter.

"I don't like being followed, so if you don't stop, I'm going to kill you," she said simply, with an impish expression.

"And what about him?" Clint said, pointing across the way to where Bucky was leaning against a column, watching them. She fell silent, before laughing,

"I've kicked his ass twelve times before. I know I can do it again." She flipped some bills down and clapped him on the shoulder. "That was a good talk, Barton," she said, walking away.

Not put off so easily, the two men followed her, staying ten or so feet behind. Finally, she stopped and looked back at them with an annoyed, yet amused face. She grinned at them as she walked into the ladies' room.

"I wish Nat was with us," Clint muttered. Bucky rolled his eyes. "That was a pretty smart move, given that we're both guys," he said.

"Would you have cared about that when you were the Winter Soldier?" Clint asked a rather accusatory tone present. Bucky fumbled for words as his ears turned pink.

"If I didn't, thank God I don't remember it," he finally managed to say.

"Hey, guys?" Sam's voice came through. "I've got someone on the roof."

"How did she get from here to there—?" Bucky wondered.

"That doesn't matter," Clint broke off, "What matters is how we can get up there that fast."

"The fire escape."

"That will set the alarm."

"Not if we open the door the wrong way."

"Oh, what? Smash through it?"

Bucky grinned.


Once she had entered the restroom, she went to the farthest stall from the door and jammed the door shut. Then, standing on the toilet, she managed to shimmy closer to the ceiling where she began to take down a part of it. Once she made a good-enough hole, she pulled herself in, and placed the piece of ceiling back, hiding most traces of her being there. Then she began to army-crawl her way through the narrow tunnel.

If she had studied the map of this place well enough, then there should be an opening right around...here! She kicked out the metal grate and wriggled her way out. Standing up again, she dusted off with a shudder what was hopefully just cobwebs. She ignored the astonished looks on the store customer's faces, as she ran out of the store and up the escalator, weaving her way through the crowds as she aimed for the nearest exit door.

Her lock picks opened the door in record time, and she ran towards the metal stairs that rose up the side of the building, figuring that they would expect her to run down a street. She vaulted over the last bit of the wall and gazed around at the gray roof, a gust of cold wind making her shiver. She took one step forward and was slammed into the back of the shoulders. Falling forward, she got control of her momentum and rolled away from the direction of the attack, scanning her surroundings to try and see who or what it was.

Another blast from behind, and arms wrapped around her as she was suddenly lifted off her feet. Ten feet up in the air, she rammed her fist back into the attacker's face, but her fist hit metal. Her blow ended up with her plunging the now twenty feet drop, and she made it with ease. As she rolled to ease the pressure on her ankles and knees, she picked up a broken brick and threw it up at the flying man as he swooped down again. It hit him square in the chest, and he reeled off with a cry of pain. He banked towards her again, but was prepared for the second brick, and blocked it with ease as he planted his foot in her chest, sending her sprawling backward.


Sam knew that she would be trained, but the ability to recover from some of the blows with the speed she did, he should have figured that. Several times, he was under threat of receiving a dislocated shoulder when he lunged with a punch, and she grabbed his wrist, twisting it up and behind his back, then kicking him forward while pulling back and twisting the arm. He spun around and kicked her legs out from under her, simultaneously rolling away.

They stood up, him breathing hard; she barely fazed physically, but glaring as all getout.

"Listen," he said, trying to reason, "This doesn't have to go like this."

"Says the one who attacked me from behind!"

"I was trying to knock you out without a fight."

"Coward."

"I prefer 'resourceful'."

"I...don't...care!" she yelled as she lunged at him. He flew up out of the way, and she ran back towards the stairs. When he dove down to stop her, he was clocked in the head with a metal pipe and crashed to the ground in a star-spinning daze.


When Bucky and Clint had lunged to the top of the stairs and could look out over the gently sloping roof, they saw Sam lying on the ground, with the woman's legs pinning his arms down and her own arms threatening to snap his neck. He was barely conscious because of the pressure. Clint, Bucky, and whoever-the-beep this was glared at each other.

"This might be hard for you to believe…" she began, "But I truly don't want to do this. Let me walk away…leave me alone…and I won't kill any of you….or the others."

"What about other people?" Clint asked, fingering his gun.

"I never wanted to hurt them either; which is why I left."

Bucky turned to look at Clint, debating whether or not she was telling the truth, and they looked back in time to watch her jump off the building. When they ran to the edge, she was nowhere in sight.