AN: My apologies! I've had this done for quite a while, but I completely forgot to upload it here...^_^; Hopefully it was well worth the wait. Also, I've made some minor edits to the previous 4 chapters. Nothing too serious, just some minor adjustments and the edited chapters should be posted within the next couple of days. However, it isn't anything that has to or should be re-read unless you're inclined to do so. It was more about accommodating my own picky nature. Enjoy!

5

Why couldn't I have been born with some useful ability, like…foresight? Maybe then, I would've had the gumption to act and follow my gut. Luck! It would be laughable if it didn't hurt so much. Damn emotional entanglements and my stupidity! I knew better! I had a lifetime of hard learned examples to fall back on, and yet, I so willingly walked into this. SHIELD was no good. I had known it—been warned—and still I stayed. Like a dog to vomit; would I never learn?

On the greater scope, I'd never really mattered. It all came down to a simple point. I was a walking catastrophe that could not be used. A threat to be eliminated. I should have ran. God knows I was provided with ample opportunity. But something had stirred inside me. A thought, an idea, a hope that I was wrong—about me. Barton almost convinced me.

Shoulda…

Woulda…

Coulda…

It had been there from the very beginning, I was just too blind to see it. Spearheaded, no less, by the one-eyed goodwill ambassador for humankind, Fury. If I had the good fortune to see that man again, I was definitely going to show him what he could do with his greater good! Hell, I should just get it over with and donate myself to science, in the name of humanity. That certainly would fill the good deed slot for at least a decade.

Boom! Another explosion rocked the complex and I stumbled into a wall. Nervously, I glanced at the concrete above me. If I didn't hurry, I was sure that this passageway in the bowels was going to collapse on me. Instinct had dictated that instead of going up and out like the rest, I go down. That was probably a stupid choice, but hey, I was on a string of those, so why not? Besides, the caliber of these baddies made me inclined to believe that there was some sort of ultra-secret escape route. Maybe I would find it. Maybe I would get out. Maybe SHIELD would believe that I was dead.

The dim, caged lights that snaked out before me flickered, once, twice, and then went out, leaving me in pitch black. Accenting the futility of such hopes and hastily being followed by another tremor, the definitive point. The impulse to just sit and let whatever was about to happen, just happen, was almost too much. My death warrant had been signed, so why fight it? I'd spent an exuberant amount of my life keeping myself from society and potential accidents. I was not naïve to the fact that I was dangerous, that people in my company more often than not came to a less than desirable end. That really wasn't a life worth living, was it?

It wasn't, or so I had thought before. What had it been? Weeks? Months? I didn't know. It wasn't like they handed out a welcome to SHIELD packet complete with a calendar. I wasn't a member. I was a potential prospect, a to-be-decided. Barton had been my evaluator sun up to sun down, or more accurately, 04:00 till whenever he felt it fit to release me from that day's prescribed torture. Rigorous training to get me in shape and then exercise after exercise after freaking exercise. Always testing my limits and always pushing my luck. Guns (not my thing), close combat (also not my thing, though I learned how to fumble my way through), being targeted from afar (this was better), and then there were the rigged scenarios (back to square one). Every day I was bruised and battered. Barton was merciless and I, frankly, learned to love to hate that man.

Then one day, I found myself thrown in with Jamison and his team of trained monkeys. None of which were very happy at my addition. Now I was supposed to use my luck for the benefit of a team, as if it happened on command. It all started again and I was faced with subsequent failure. I was not a soldier, but that also didn't seem to matter. Orders were orders and the agents followed them to a tee. However, that did nothing to stem the building resentment or comments.

Everything was fixed against me. Just one fiasco after another and I was rewarded with accumulative injuries. The dislike between me and Jamison festered, his sole mission, to run me into the ground and then bury me six feet under. Mine, to make him the unluckiest bastard to have ever been born. On the margin of success, I was well on my way. Him, not so much.

Fury did nothing.

Coulson brought me coffee.

Barton.

He'd poisoned me, and there was no going back.

Damn secret agents and spies! Damn non-existent clandestine organizations and their manipulative multifaceted schemes! And damn being a pawn!

I pushed away from the wall, leaving a hand to trail upon it, and pressed forward into the dark. From my last glimpse, this had gone on straight for quite a while, or so I thought. I hadn't really been paying attention. Inner turmoil and the shock of what had just happened won out over current surroundings.

Minus ten points for lack of focus.

I swore I felt the tip of an arrow thump my skull and I shook my head rapidly. No! No, I was not going back there. I was not going to think about that. The bittersweet reminder got the point across, however, and I pushed it all aside. I'd sort, anguish, rage, and make new rules later. Right now, I needed to get out. As if the fire already lit beneath me wasn't enough, there was another massive tremor. It all but knocked me off my feet. A prickling chill washing over my skin. It was what I had come to understand as the kiss of death, and this time it was closer. I'd felt it before, in times of 'only Chuck Norris' would survive this, like when I had faced off against the Baron and his grenade launcher of glory.

I broke into a run just as the sound of glass and metal crunching beneath a tremendous weight thudded behind me. The chase was on. Cement disintegrated into rock, tearing, splitting on my heels. The deafening sound shuddering through me. I felt as though I was running in water, every action in seeming slow motion, every sense in some way inhibited. I could see nothing, and hear nothing but the impending doom just behind. Eyes watering, I choked on the filmy, particle-filled air coating me, and my now claustrophobic avenue of escape. Then I lost touch. The fingers that had been trailing the wall suddenly lost contact and found nothing. I stumbled forward, a piece of the ceiling notching my shoulder in the process, and then I was tumbling down stairs.

Down, down, and down. In vain did I try to protect my head in my plummet. Rock was everywhere. It bit and dug, clawed and scraped. I could feel it embedding in my face, my hands, and any place where skin was exposed. Like a domino effect it followed just barely shy of crushing me. There seemed no limit to my decent or pain, and as if things hadn't already reached a sufficient level of suck, they were about to. Starting with a poignant crack! My ribs perfectly collided with the edge of the stair. My outcry lost in the din. Then, it was only air, the sickening rush of solidity now absent.

The blind terror of the unknown squeezed its fingers about my neck. My breath effectively trapped and the panic of inability beginning to spread. I was going to die, if not from such a smashing end then definitely from suffocation. My momentum was brought to a sudden halt by a large immovable object. My body severely lacked appreciation for the hard surface and I'd given voice to that fact at the moment of collision. Completely overcome, I was unable to move and I waited for the imminent pain, the last sensation before I felt nothing at all.

It never came.

I was unceremoniously tugged to the side, despite some of my hair being snagged in the process, just shyly missing the cave-in from above. It didn't end there, however. Hands grabbed me and roughly propelled me forward. The abrupt change from pitch black to—glaring white—did nothing in the vision department. It seemed that I wasn't wrong about that other way out. But seriously, my senses were a smorgasbord, and what was even more remarkable was my handle on stomach management. Maybe there was some benefit to the training I'd been subjected to, or maybe my body had finally found its groove in all of my natural disasters.

In a more reasonable life, I might have been afforded the opportunity to sort it all out, but that wasn't the case and more to the point, I wasn't done. I'd barely managed to suck in some air when I was again shoved from behind. The difference being that this time arms wrapped around me, holding me fast, as I moved under the force of someone else.

This was going to hurt and I tried to brace myself. The dread almost worse than the contact. Almost. How do I describe the throbbing waves or the burning strobe of my ribs? It was too excessive, an overload of sensations as I hit and then slid. My body cramped and I lost myself for a moment. Coherency came back in the form of a cough, which quickly turned into an onslaught and an unforgiving spasm. I could do nothing trapped between my lungs need and the agony it caused. Nothing but wait for the fit to subside and that took several minutes.

By sheer damned determination did I pull myself up onto my hands and knees. A garbled unintelligible noise (heavily tinged with a whimper) passed through my lips as I did, and for a few seconds I focused only on breathing. Then it turned to my blurred, watery vision and ringing ears. In an attempt to help, I rubbed my face against my upper arm (marginally successful). I was coated from head to toe in a fine dusty film; there was only so much I could do. Despite this, things began to come back into focus, although the irritation persisted. I would take what I could get.

Adjacent to me was a large hunk of rock that had once, from what I could tell, been part of the structural integrity of this…hangar? It didn't really matter as most of it had collapsed in on itself. What was more important was getting out before the rest followed suit, this is what I solely focused on, and getting to my feet; everything else driven out by the instinct to survive. It was my last mistake.

I was expediently pulled to my feet. Alarm was the kick starter; it was rough and vicious, barreling through me with a buzzing rapidity. Hot on its heels was pain in all its grandeur, raging at the movement that was beyond my control and robbing me of breath. But this last feeling…it would not be pinned down in such a limited fashion. It stemmed from too much—it was too much—twisting my gut until I felt my insides give at the pressure. My throat constricting so intensely that I was light-headed and barely able to swallow. My eyes burned as it fought for prominence and won. The rest was merely a passing nuisance not able to compare in its presence.

Why? That was the question that haunted me and not for the first time. Why? It was all compounded and the weight of the years pressed down upon me. There was no hiding the anguish as I stared into Barton's steely gaze.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to live." My words were barely a whisper.

His grip tightened around my arm. "That is trying to live?"

That…

The word carried the connotative value of a loaded gun.

"I didn't do that!" I insisted.

I hadn't, but the line between guilt and innocence had bled so thoroughly that even I had doubt. What if I was wrong? What if it had been all me? What if SHIELD was right? Jamison had given the order and I had moved in, shadowing McCormick like a good girl. Everyone was in position and I was up. The job was so simple that even I could do it, or so they had said, mocked. I hadn't agreed. There was this little thing called experience and I lacked it. The counter argument: it was no different than robbing crime lords and I'd done that plenty. On the other hand, if I failed robbing a crime lord it was all on me. My misgivings were disregarded.

I couldn't explain what had happened. One minute I had been there and the next I was gone. A wave of dizziness had rushed through me and I blacked out. When I came back to, everything had gone to hell. I tried to save McCormick.

"I didn't…" I repeated.

"And so you ran." The disapproval in Barton's voice cut deep.

"Yes, I ran. It put the odds back into everyone else's favor! Did you want me to lie down and die? Let Jamison finally get his wish and shove his combat knife of compensation into my skull?"

"No." I had trouble interpreting the look on Barton's face. "I wanted you to help."

Those five words were a gut bomb.

"It doesn't work like that. I told you that! I told them that! If there was any other possible outcome, I would know it by now." There was a hard edge to my voice as I added, "You can't control luck."

"Luck isn't the problem."

That broke the floodgate.

"Isn't it! But you wouldn't know that, would you? All you know is exactly what they tell you! SHIELD: stiffs and hard-cases incessantly evoking little deceptions! Just a bunch of chicks waiting for big mama to tell you when to jump. You should get it over with and add an eye patch and trench coat to the standard uniform!"

I was shaking on the inside and the momentary boost from my anger was dissipating. A cold resignation and something that I didn't want to identify was left in its wake.

"But you're right, I'm the problem. So go ahead, follow your orders, Agent Barton."

There was no mistaking his angry look. Before I even thought to act, I was pulled forward. My arms trapped between Barton's chest and arm. His free hand thrusting a point into my neck, a needle, I jerked but it was too late. I was highly susceptible and I quickly met the familiar sluggishness. Barton watched and held me fast as I began to succumb.

"I make my own calls," he told me, and I wanted to believe him.

It was dusk and a lone car stopped at an old warehouse in the dilapidated section of the industrial district. Gangs and homeless were the populace of the area, but they knew to stay away from this particular spot. One man, large and well-built exited the vehicle and entered the seemingly derelict building. It was dark within giving to the appearance of it being unoccupied. That of course was not the case, but the man passed through unchallenged. He climbed the stairs making his way to the upmost level. He had just stepped onto the landing when he was met by an extremely anxious individual.

"Sasha." The man's voice was marked with relief. "He's been asking for you."

Sasha regarded his companion seriously. "He's awake?"

"Ya, no drugs."

Sasha quickened his pace and entered his intended destination. It was a rather large windowless room. Men stood about in the shadows keeping their distance from, and trying not to watch, the spectacle at the center. There, on a table like a slab of meat turned porcupine was the Baron. Sasha entered the circle of light without hesitation.

"Sasha…" The Baron's voice was gravelly as he spoke. "What news?"

"She's gone."

"Gone? What you mean gone?" A dangerous edge crept into the Baron's tone.

"The trail stops. She was there, now is gone."

The Baron fell silent and Sasha waited. With the lack of conversation, the sound of flesh being worked on was that much more apparent.

"Who is it that makes people disappear?" the Baron finally asked.

Sasha quickly caught on to the Baron's train of thought.

"Yes," the Baron acknowledged. "Someone knows. You find them, you find her. Now go."

Sasha nodded and turned to leave.

"And Sasha," the Baron added. "Find her and we have no problem."