A/N: Here's chapter one. Make sure to review with your thoughts! Still none of the man canon characters here, I'm still finishing up with exposition.

Warnings: Torture, murder, death, implied sexual assault, innuendo, etc.

Chapter 1

"I'm a wanderess." -Halsey

Irene has never been so sure of anything in her life.

She proves capable with most of the weapons, though it takes her a few weeks to polish her skills. Murder is like riding a bicycle—you never really forget how to do it, even after a long time.

And it has certainly been a long time. Man #6 was eleven years ago. Man #5 just a month before. One with a knife, the other with a gun.

The men in the training facility like to call her a lesbian. Irene is pretty sure it's because she won't sleep with them, and their fragile little hearts must search for something else to blame her rejection on. She must not want to sleep with me because she doesn't like men. It's a pity, really.

On the other hand, though, she thinks that they might call her a lesbian because she's doing a man's job. Women aren't supposed to drop-kick criminals. They're supposed to bake pies and curl their hair and wear heels while they vacuum.

On the third hand (this hypothetical is actually an octopus), she thinks that they get off on the idea of her with another woman. They're pigs. She hates them.

But she takes comfort in the fact that while they've spent most of their time struggling with guns and fumbling with knives, she's mastered ropes and learned how to suffocate a man twice her size. She's gotten so very good at this.

Irene passes the psych exams. There are three more tests before she is cleared for field work:

1. She must pass a written tests on the various CIA protocols
2. She must pass an undercover test to make sure she can lie
3. She must pass a torture test.

The written test shouldn't be too hard, except Irene's not too good at reading in English. The only experience she has with it, really, is from her waitressing days, where she taught herself how to spell the various menu items correctly, and from the few times she actually read along in church.

(mostly, she just mumbled about all the things she'd rather be doing. Speaking the Nicene Creed would be lying, and she'd prefer to be defiant rather than dishonest).

The second test shouldn't be too difficult, depending on the situation. Irene's been lying for ten years. What's a few weeks?

The third is the one she fears. Of course she does; she isn't a complete birdbrain. Why type of torture will it be? Will they hold her head underwater? Will they draw a knife across her skin? Will they try and force someone upon her?

The first two? She can probably handle it.

The third? No.

I have to pass the test though, she reminds herself. Deep down, she hopes they'll get the torture test over first. Get it done with, leave it in the past.

That's not what happens, though.

The written test is administered on October the 14 of 1961. She spends the entire month of August with a phonics book, learning what words mean and how they look written down. They she spends October studying the actual protocols.

Most of them are common sense—if the agent is in an undercover operation, they will abandon their cover only if dire circumstances force them to. But some of them are more difficult—in the event of a fire, the agent will save first their asset, then their partner, then their target, who must be apprehended in a form that makes them incapable of escaping or causing malice.

There are so many words in some of them that they take up the entire column. Irene spends all morning training physically, all afternoon studying the 400-page stack of paper, and in the evenings, she occasionally goes to the bars nearby the facility. She finds herself liking tropical fruit drinks with terrible names. She likes to dance with the handsome men that are just as noncommittal as her. She likes to put on nice makeup and smile and pretend like she can't kill them if she wants to.

She passes the exam, just barely. Her 71 percent score is mostly due to the fact that the person grading the test couldn't understand her written answers. But Irene is satisfied with just passing.

Once, she goes on a mission with two agents, and while she is only there to shadow them and learn about what it's like in the field, she finds the experience very exciting. Irene knows that she shouldn't enjoy sprinting around with a weapon, but she does. The feeling of power, of how she's doing something to help her country, is overwhelmingly intoxicating. She now calls America her country; not Cuba. Years of a nonstop mantra—American American American—did nothing to help. But joining the CIA did. Protecting people did.

On November 25, she has her undercover exam. The mission is to steal a file on from one of the richest weapons companies in the U.S.

Irene gets to go to dinner in a nice dress and pretend that a handsome agent is her husband.

Once again, she's never been so sure of anything in her life.

Things are going smoothly. After dinner, while everyone's dancing, Irene will conveniently get lost upstairs and distract whoever comes in with kisses and touches while her partner steals the file.

But things do not stay so calm.

When she is inevitably caught, the kisses don't work and the knocks her out with the butt of his gun. She's carried to the basement of the mansion, stripped, bound, and gagged.

They torture her.

First with knuckles, fists against her cheekbones and breaking her nose, and hitting her over and over in the jaw.

But still, she doesn't speak.

(This clears up any doubts the CIA might have had about this company's intentions.)

But then, they take out a knife.

"Who do you work for?" they ask her.

Stay strong. You can survive this. You've survived much worse.

She stares blankly ahead, and the burly man doing the torturing kneels down to her level. "Answer me." Still, she ignores him. So the man takes the knife and holds it close to her throat. Irene leans back as far as possible, stretching her neck out. Her heart races in her chest and there are blue and black spots creeping in from the edge of her field of vision.

She's passed out twice, already, woken up to the feeling of cold water being dumped on her face. One of these times she might try and control the jumping so that they think she's still out, and they'll stop causing pain.

Irene stares into the dead blue eyes of the man in front of her. He stares right back, and then he moves the knife to her collarbone, drawing a line with his weapon from her neck to her shoulder. A strangled noise escapes her mouth as her neck begins to sting. It burns. Badly. She can feel the hot liquid leaking out of the cut, and she watches as it spills down over her breast.

And then she passes out again, this time for much longer.

While she's unconscious, she thinks about the six lives she's ended.

The first was named Tomas.

Irene loved him.

Irene didn't want to kill him. He begged her to. And so she pulled out her dagger and looked him in the eyes, and she stabbed him in the chest. Irene held him as he died. She didn't cry, just held his head to her chest and sh-sh-shhhh'd him until his heart stopped beating.

She didn't want to kill him.

He was her first love.

Irene's about to think about Person #2, José, when she hears a voice in the distance pulling her out of her memories. "Agent. Agent Acosta."

Agent? She's not Agent. She's Irene.

But as the fog starts to clear, she remembers that yes, she is Agent. She is Agent Acosta. The only person that calls her Irene is the bartender down the street.

When she manages to navigate her way to waking up, Irene is hit with a dull pain in her shoulder. She opens her eyes to inspect, seeing nothing but a large white bandage covering the wound. She's lying in a bed, and there's woman in a dress fussing with the bedding at her ankles. "Oh! You're awake," she exclaims. "I'll go get them."

There are two men with her when she returns—Saunders and a doctor. The doctor begins to check her, while Saunders just whistles lowly and puts his hands in his pockets. "That was one hell of a show, kiddo."

Irene doesn't like him calling her kiddo. She's not a kid. The nickname is too paternal. He is not her father.

"I'd say that qualifies as passing your fifth exam. So as soon as you've healed, we'll assign you your first mission."

All negative thoughts rush out the window as Irene sits up in bed. She grins, despite the sharp pain shooting through her shoulder. "Really?" she exclaims, wide-eyed and youthful.

Saunders nods, gives her what seems to be an impressed look, and then leaves.

It takes one month for her to get back into physical shape. Her face heals much more slowly than her shoulder, which, once sewn up, scabbed and scarred and began to fade. The mark is perfectly straight until it reaches the end, where it curls up a little bit. Irene finds this little imperfection both comforting and frustrating for no particular reason at all.

Once she's in shape again, Saunders calls her into the briefing room, and launches into a story about a spy named Napoleon and a Russian named Illya and an Asset named Gaby and how they all fell in love had to work together to stop Gaby's insane Uncle Rudy. And then Saunders continues to say that the three formed an international spy network called U.N.C.L.E.—United Network for something or other. He tells Irene that the network is led by a man named Alexander Waverly (British) and that he is a good guy but a terrible golfer.

Irene's not sure why Saunders is sharing this information with her—especially the golf bit. She's not going to play golf with him, so what does it matter?

"I'm sending you to U.N.C.L.E.," he concludes after finishing the thrilling tale. Irene blinks away her daydream and looks up at her superior.

"What?" she demands, and then adds a meek, "sir."

"I'm assigning you to U.N.C.L.E. Your first mission is in Istanbul."

"Istanbul?" Irene repeats, except it's not really a question. More like she's saying it out loud like that will help her to understand. "Istanbul…Turkey?"

"Yeah, Istanbul, Turkey. Your flight leaves tomorrow at noon. Here's your cover."

He slides a file folder across the conference table at her, and then leaves. Irene sits in the room for a bit, reading over the case.

Apparently there's a rich man in Istanbul that has a daughter who's marrying another rich man. But her fiancé is a man that wants to use her money to run experiments on people, so their mission is to kill him. Irene's cover is as a college student named Doreen. She's travelling with her friend, Jack, who is a possible investor for the father's money. The other two team members-Russian and East-German, are engaged.

Her first mission is an assassination.

Irene almost smiles—she would if it weren't for the utter direness of the situation. She's never been so sure of anything in her life.

a/n: please review! Feedback feeds the muse.