Tyler took a deep breath and checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. His tie was still straight, and there didn't seem a hair out of place on his head. He had no idea why his appearance mattered so much to him right now, but it did.

Sighing, he opened the door and stepped out of the car. "Then again, it's not every day that I graduate to full CIA agent status."

Three years had passed by quickly since Dixon had given him his break with the agency. He had put in countless hours of meaningless prep work for agents, praying that one day the people in his office would be doing the same for him.

His parents had warned him that there was a good chance he would never make it to full status. He wouldn't doubt if they had paid off the US government to keep him out of the field. They still weren't comfortable with what he was going with his life.

He was starting to get really tired of hearing about that stupid prophecy. It was ruling his life still, even though he was convinced it was never going to actually occur. He rubbed his pounding temples gently as he walked through the parking garage and to the elevator that led down to the basement. The last thing he needed was a headache. After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, the door beeped and slid open.

Tyler nodded to the woman already inside and turned forward after pressing the 'B' button.

"Going to the basement?" she asked with a smile.

"Yeah," he said without turning around.

"Me, too." She paused. "Hey! Don't I know you?"

Tyler turned around and looked the woman over. She was middle-aged, looked pretty fit, had a small scar running along one cheekbone, nice smile, eyes that seemed to be mocking him. And she looked vaguely familiar. "I don't know. I don't think so."

"Come on. Do you go to Divello's Coffee Shop down on Third? I'm there every Wednesday."

"No," Tyler answered quickly. He couldn't figure out why the hell the elevator was taking this long to go down to the basement.

"Are you sure? I know I know you from somewhere."

Tyler didn't respond this time. He had enough to be nervous about without having to make polite conversation with some whack-job woman who thought she knew him.

The elevator shifted to a stop, and the woman pushed past him to hit a series of the buttons. Within seconds, the doors slid open. "You have a lot to learn, Tyler, if you couldn't even recognize me. I made it easy on you."

He watched in amazement as the woman pulled off her glasses and her hair which turned out to be a blond wig. Bright red hair spilled out. "I know you!" he yelled.

"Told you." She stuck out her hand for him to shake. "Amy Tippin. I met you six years ago or so. I offered you my help and gave you my number. You never called."

"You work for the Agency?"

"Where do you think I met your parents?" she said with a laugh. "Marcus sent me up to give you your first test as an agent, and make sure you didn't set off any alarms before getting down here." As an afterthought, she added, "You'll learn the codes for the elevator soon. Pinky swear."

"Good to know."

"I can't believe you didn't recognize me. I didn't even ask for makeup to cover up the scar. The Agency said you were ready for this."

"I am."

"That will be decided soon enough."

"Hey, Ame!" yelled a short man from one of the corner offices. He ran out into the hall in a rush.

"Marshall," Amy said, a grin spilling across her face. She waited for the man to come over to where she stood. "Marshall Flinkman, this is Tyler Vaughn."

"No," he hissed, his eyes going wide. "Lauren and Michael's son?"

"Newest agent of the CIA. Tyler, this is Marshall Flinkman, the best gadget guy you will ever meet. And one hell of a cook, might I add!"

"My parents talked about you a lot," Tyler said, ignoring the fact that Amy's compliment had made Marshall blush profusely. "They used to joke about all the missions you got roped into going on."

"I'll have you know that I saved their lives and Syd's at least ten times."

"Ixnay on the Ydneysay," Amy said, grabbing Tyler's arm and steering him down the hall. "There's a few things you'll find that we are not allowed to discuss. Former agents are one of them."

"That makes no sense. I know all about my Aunt Sydney."

She shook her head and chuckled. "Sure you do, slugger." Amy pushed open a door and shoved Tyler into the conference room. "I got him here in one piece, Dixon. Do I get a gold star?"

Tyler felt a little bit of his nerves disappear when he saw the familiar face of Marcus Dixon staring back at him. Maybe he wouldn't screw this up completely.

"Tyler. How are you holding up?" Dixon motioned for him and Amy to join him at the table.

"Okay. This is all very intimidating."

"I know the feeling. Every time I started at a new agency, I couldn't eat for days."

"I had breakfast this morning," he said absentmindedly.

"Stop the polite chatter," Amy whined. "I want to hear what you've cooked up for the kid's first mission. They sent me to Tangiers for mine. It was crazy. I must have almost died like twenty times within the first hour of being there. And I only had to blow up two buildings to get home safe."

"Good to know." Tyler turned to Dixon. "Am I going to die? Because I don't know if I signed up for that."

"No dying on this mission. I assure you," Dixon said with a laugh. "It's really tame. We want to make sure you're field ready, that's all." He slid a folder across the table to Tyler. "Those are your specifics. We need you to infiltrate a facility in London. It's a current cell of the broke-down K-Directorate that's been trying to reassemble themselves the past few years."

"K-Directorate? I thought that the CIA eliminated all threat of their reassembling when they made that stupid mistake of kidnapping that civilian ten years ago."

"Civilian, my ass!" Amy interrupted with a laugh. She threw her feet up onto the table. "The day that Syd is a civilian is the day that all evil has been eliminated from the world."

Dixon rolled his eyes. "I wish that you guys would stop divulging national secrets without approval. Especially when they have something to do with a Bristow or Lazarey."

"Sorry. I keep forgetting that the kid isn't in the know yet."

"The kid is sitting right here," Tyler reminded them.

Amy turned and nodded at him in a slightly patronizing manner. "Forget everything I just said, honey. If you don't, they might stick you to a desk with no hope of going on missions. I've seen it happen before. It's not pretty for any party involved."

Tyler's eyes widened in horror, and he looked at Dixon. "Is she serious?"

"No. Amy, go do that follow-up work on your last mission that you've been avoiding for the past few days."

"Well, a girl knows when she's not wanted." Sighing, she stood up and left the room, throwing a little wave over her shoulder. Tyler heard her muttering something about burning the paperwork instead as the door slammed shut.

Dixon watched as Tyler continued to stare at the closed door long after Amy had left the room. "You'll get used to her," he said with a laugh. "Eventually."

Tyler snapped out of his thoughts and blushed. Why was he so easily distracted lately? "I'm sorry. You were talking about my mission."

"This splinter cell is desperately trying to find some sort of influence over our government. We think they're hacking into the files MI-6 has compiled on our current operations. We have to know for sure if the cell has gotten anything they can use against us. That's where you come in."

"Is it going to be hard?" Tyler asked hesitantly. He knew that it was a rookie thing to ask, but he didn't care. He wanted to know what he was getting into.

"No. You just have to go in posing as a business man. Find a computer terminal. Hack in and see if there's anything useful. You shouldn't meet any sort of resistance."

"What do you mean shouldn't?"

"This New Directorate, as they taken to calling themselves, has a few good agents that might be at the site when you arrive. If they recognize you as a CIA agent, you might have to fight your way out of the building. That shouldn't be a problem considering you got one of the highest scores ever on the physical portions of the CIA entrance tests. Higher than your father, might I point out."

"How come that isn't quite reassuring enough?"

Dixon laughed. "Relax. It's typical for a rookie's first assignment to go off without a hitch. That whole Tangiers assignment with Agent Tippin was a fluke."

"That really happened?"

"Yeah. She's a little bit of a legend around here." He pointed back at the dossier. "Your flight is going to leave for London in a few hours. Use your time before that to familiarize yourself with the people you'll be working with in the future. If you get too nervous, go talk to Marshall. He's usually good for a laugh and some great gear to take with you on the mission."

Tyler just stared as Dixon left the room. Things were going way too fast for him already. Maybe his father and mother had been right three years ago when they told him that getting involved in the CIA would be too much for him at the moment.

He really hoped he could do this.

Tyler sat back and watched the device Marshall had given him scan through the files on the computer. His mind kept replaying what Marshall had said about the agents he might encounter.

It seemed that Dixon had been playing down the danger that he was in if one of the New Directorate's agents found him here. Marshall had explained that the top three agents of this cell had been terrorizing the CIA for three years now.

There was Maverick, who seemed to get happiness from discovering an agent's identity and then blowing up his house of residence. That was only after he destroyed all the people that the agent cared for. Maverick had a thing for pain.

The second agent, Deathstrike, screwed with the CIA's computer system in some form on a weekly basis. The glitches she installed had already taken the lives of four dozen agents in the past year.

Finally, there was Black Widow. Marshall had explained that no agent who had ever encountered her could describe what she was like. It seemed like she wiped their memories clean when she was done wiping the walls with their bodies.

To quote Marshall, "if you meet the Black Widow, you're pretty much dead."

Tyler closed his eyes and tried to stop thinking about it. He had almost gotten all the potential ways he could die in the next ten minutes out of his head as gunshots started ringing through the halls. Luckily, Marshall's device also chose that moment to beep an affirmation that his job was done.

He ripped it from its connection and dived under the desk just as the door burst open. There were sounds of a struggle and a few more gunshots before he heard the door slam shut. For the life of him, Tyler could not figure out what the hell was happening.

"Shit."

He took a deep breath and did his best to try to gather information without being able to see what was happening, just like they had taught him in training. The voice sounded like the intruder was about sixteen and definitely somewhere were she was not supposed to be. She sounded frightened.

"My mother is going to kill me if I get bullet holes in her favorite jacket. How the hell am I supposed to get out of this one?"

Okay. Maybe she wasn't frightened.

Tyler moved an inch in order to see around the desk. There was a woman standing against the closed door, looking rather panicked. Her actions would have made him assume that she was someone who could possibly be on his side or at least be an innocent bystander of the chaos. That is, if only she wasn't wearing a mask and currently reloading a gun.

Firearms didn't usually signal allies.

He wondered if there was any way he could sneak out of the room without her knowing. He didn't even have time to think about a potential escape route when she started talking again. Only this time, she wasn't talking to herself.

"Before you do something stupid, I want you to know that I'm aware you're behind that desk. You breathe heavily. Makes me think you're nervous. Were you doing something you weren't supposed to be?"

He drew the gun out of the holster at his side and stood up. "Who the hell are you? What the hell are you dong here?"

"I could ask the same of you." The woman ripped off her mask, and long, red hair spilled out. Tyler froze for a moment. She was attractive. And definitely not sixteen.

She gave him a wink. "Hi, Mr. Hottie. I'm Ana. But you can call me Black Widow, for short."