Chapter 8: Busted!

Those three words, so lost and helpless. Three words spoken with so much vulnerability. That question that no one in their right minds would want to have to ask. Three simple, foreboding words…

What am I?

He knew the sensation of feeling that you were more, or less, than human. He knew what it felt like to think you were all alone in the world. He knew what it was to think that you were a freak and that you had no place among the human, or any, race. He himself had asked those same words more than once after he had been given the serum.

But when Tyler asked that question it seemed so much more pitiful, so much more… cast away. With her eyes wide and confused her words had barely been able to escape her lips before Steve's heart dropped. This was only her second month with S.H.I.E.L.D. and her world had already been turned upside-down. That had to be one twisted record that had been set.

Steve almost reached out to Tyler but she flinched away before he was able to actually complete the motion. Every move he made she could anticipate; it must've been so painful for her so think about after what she just saw. That's why he didn't make another move when Tyler ran out of the room. He just stood there and stared as the automatic door slid to a close.

Clint almost wanted to run after Tyler to tell her that whatever was running through her head wasn't true, but he couldn't. Tyler might have only resisted and made everything worse due to how fresh her wound was. There was no comforting to be done at that moment, but that didn't mean there wouldn't come a time later. And he would be there at that time, but right then he turned on Fury.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded with an unusually large amount of fire in his eyes. "In what way did you think that was going to help Tyler's situation at all?"

Fury looked at him with a tilted head. "What do you propose I should have done, given the circumstances, Agent Barton?"

Clint's nostrils flared and his fists clenched. He hated how detached the Director seemed after what just happened. He just told a nineteen year old girl that she was different from everybody else without a thought to how she might respond.

"I highly doubt that was the only way she could have been told about her ability," Clint spit out. "You know very well that Stark is currently in a rocky relationship with her. Did you really think that would help?"

"It doesn't matter whether it helped her daddy issues or not," Fury replied with a slightly raised voice. "She needed to know or-"

"Or what?" Clint interrupted with a surprisingly calm voice; a telltale sign that Fury just pushed him a little too far. "Or she would have found out for herself what she was and then, feeling slighted, would have released an army of Chitauri on Manhattan? Somehow comparing her to Loki doesn't sit right with me. I wonder why that could be."

"I wasn't comparing her to Loki, Barton."

"Then what were you doing?" Clint snarled and flung his arm out behind him to where Tyler had just been. "Were you trying to make her feel so abandoned by her father that she decided to sever ties with him completely? I assure you Tony is doing that just fine on his own. I see absolutely no point in so ungraciously-"

"Once again, Barton," Fury interrupted, "under the circumstances I had no choice. You were questioning her about how she was able to fight so well but she had no answers. You went so far as to accuse her of being an imposter and you held her by her neck on the ground. If I had shown you the video and you stopped pestering her about it then she would become suspicious. She may not be exactly like Stark, but her mind runs in the same direction. There was no outcome where she wouldn't feel hurt by learning about her ability so I decided hiding what she is from her wasn't in our best interests. She was going to have to find out one way or another."

"Oh, and let me guess. This was the best way?" Clint sniffed with disgust. "For some reason I have a hard time believing that."

"Believe what you want," Fury said blatantly. Clint had the right mind to say something he would probably regret later, but he knew that if he did then his words could very well be accompanied by something a little more physical. So, without further arguing with the Director, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.

Natasha looked at Fury without saying anything. She didn't have to; it was all written behind her eyes. Fury need only glance at her for a moment before he discerned that she, too, felt the same as Clint. A moment later she turned and left the room, calmly, but very pointedly. That left Steve and Fury alone.

Steve stood ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind his back and fought away a scowl that threatened to form on his lips. He didn't like the way Fury dealt with things most of the time, especially not in this particular instance, but he felt that disrespecting his superiors wasn't the right thing to do. No matter how much he felt the urge to do it. So, as respectively and cordially as possible, he said to Fury:

"Productively dealing with other people's feelings isn't your strong suit, Sir."

With that, he turned and left.

Fury stared at the door in front of his desk with a very, very slight trace of sorrow in his eyes. Of course he didn't want to hurt Tyler. Though he wouldn't admit it, the kid had grown on him a little. But there truly was no other way since she was bound to find out no matter what he did to keep her in the dark. She would begin asking questions when she was able to move onto a higher level of hand-to-hand combat than the rest of the agents around her. Hell, he was surprised she hadn't already asked Tony to help her hack into the S.H.I.E.L.D. mainframe.

The outcome of his actions might not have merited anything in Tyler's favor at that particular moment, but he was fairly certain it would be better than what would have happened had she stumbled across the knowledge of her talent on her own. Right then, he could have only hoped Tony was ready with some damn good excuses to keep Tyler's anger down.

Tyler slammed the door to her room behind her and locked it. She remained leaning on the door with her hands for a few minutes, breathing unnaturally heavily, before she pushed away from it and began pacing back and forth across her room. She did her best to control her breathing but she just couldn't. It felt as though her lungs were burning and no matter how much air she tried to suck in she continued to be suffocating. As a result, she couldn't think straight. She knew something terrible just happened but she couldn't quite grasp what it was. She also hardly understood why she couldn't breathe.

But then somehow she remembered. Clumsily she made it over to her bag and had to prop her weight with her hands on the arm chair that the bag was on so she didn't fall over. With her eyes barely able to focus on what she was doing, her hands fumbled through her bag until, stuffed into one of the corners, she found it. Her inhaler.

She put it up to her lips, pressed down on the button, and took a deep breath. Immediately her lungs were relieved and her hand dropped as she began to regain a mental foothold on what just happened. She hadn't had an asthma attack in four years. It was a miracle she still had her inhaler on her person. Why had she all of a sudden failed to breathe properly when she hadn't done any physical type of activity that she wasn't used to doing?

After another moment of confusion she finally remembered why she had sprinted to her room in the first place. Considering what she had just found out, maybe it wasn't an asthma attack but a panic attack. Perhaps she merely fooled herself into thinking it was her asthma acting up so that she could calm down. Whatever the reason, she wasn't sure whether she should be glad or not about it, because now the full weight of what she discovered crashed down on her shoulders once again.

Tony had apparently made the conclusion that Tyler's natural talent for combat was something called muscle memory or whatever, and he kept it a secret. How long had he known? At the least he knew for nine years. Nine years, and he couldn't shed a little light on the subject for her. Instead it had to be Director Fury of all people to tell her what she was. As far as she could tell, this was the only thing that gave Fury reason enough to let her on the ship. As far as she could tell, all of the other agents and trainees had some history with killing or whatever. She just had this inhuman ability.

The HQ was a large place and it was probably impossible for her to see everything, but there were some things she couldn't be kept from. She had questions of this earlier, but she failed to work up the courage to ask anyone about it.

About halfway into her second week of training she decided to skip a day because, hey, she was getting a little bored of the normal routine. What she found herself at the doorstep of was a parkour course that Steve had earlier shown her. She had to admit that she was a little frustrated Clint hadn't started to train her on it when he knew she was a sucker for such things; skateboarding her whole life certainly helped her to develop appreciation for "street sports."

When a large group of people around her age walked into the room and began training she observed that none of them were full-fledged agents, save one who seemed to be supervising them. That was when she realized that there were actual groups of trainees, which wasn't that farfetched at all. S.H.I.E.L.D. probably needed a lot of agents and couldn't put one agent for every single kid they were training or there would be no one to carry out missions.

So why did she get not one, but three agents training her? At first she suspected it was because of Tony, but she doubted that even he had that much sway over Fury. So apparently she couldn't train with the normal classes because she was some weirdo who could see and copy other people's movements. She deserved "special treatment." She needed to be trained by the best right away so that she could be sent into the field as fast as possible.

Actually, that wasn't too bad. It was pretty cool; she was being trained by the best when no one else was. Ha! Her problem in this situation was that no one told her about it until now. Wouldn't it have been a little easier if she knew about this so that Clint didn't have to waste his time showing her a move several times over? From what Tony said, all she had to do was see the move once for her to be able to do it. What good did he think keeping this secret would do? On top of neglecting to contact her he hadn't told her who – or what – she really was.

Now she was left to question everything he'd ever told her. Had he really adopted her because he began to like her or because he knew of her ability and wanted to experiment with it? Hell, was his name even Tony Stark? Right then she didn't know a damn thing except that in the next few moments she had completely lost control of her actions.

She hadn't lashed out yet, though. Instead she moved to the bedside table and grabbed her phone that she left virtually untouched for the past five weeks. She unlocked it and, surprise, no messages from Tony. As she sat down on her bed she typed out a message that made it blatantly clear she wanted to rip her father's head off. Could she really even call him that anymore? She decided to use his actual name instead of "Dad".

What the hell is wrong with you, Tony? – the message said.

She put her phone down and stood up with the expectation that Tony wouldn't text back until much later, since he could never find it in himself to text her first. But then, before she had even made it halfway to the bathroom, an unmistakable vibrating stopped her in her tracks. She turned very slowly and walked as though she were wading in thigh-deep caramel back to her bed. She picked up the phone and looked at the screen with the hope that it was some server that texted her to say that Tony was out of the country and the message couldn't be sent or something, but she knew better. The message was from him.

What did I do this time? – Tony asked.

Tyler just stared and continued to stare even when the screen timed out and faded to black. Never could Tony spare a moment of his day to send her a text on his own- never. When he had something to actually remind him that he did indeed adopted a daughter, however, he replied without hesitation. Normally that would be a good thing, but if he had the time to text her back that quickly then why didn't he make his own effort to contact her?

That was when she truly lost control. Before when she had unconsciously made the decision to text Tony she was sure she would have had the power to stop herself if she really wanted to, but this time was different. This time the fuse to the TNT ran out.

And suddenly, her phone was in pieces as it hit the wall that was in front of her. She turned and threw herself face first on her bed without feeling any regret about the thing. She rarely used it anyway, and it was a phone Tony had made for her. Ergo, she didn't give a crap about it. Or anything else. Truthfully, she would be fine if Tony stayed away from her the rest of her life. Maybe then she'd be able to focus on actually becoming a good S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

It was admittedly childish what Tyler did next, but she did it anyway. She pressed her pillow firmly to her face and screamed. She figured it was better than stealing one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s jets which was another possibility of what she could do. She could steal a jet and then… she could steal a jet.

Suddenly, without thinking any more on it, Tyler stood and began throwing all of her belongings in her bag. If Tony wanted to ignore her, then she would ignore him in a much more dangerous fashion. She could fly the jet to some other country and use the credit card, connected to Tony's account, to buy what she needed. Giving him a little scare would hardly be anything compared to what he was making her go through. She wanted to be left alone and the only way she would truly obtain that was if she literally left; never mind that she had only received about one or two hour's worth of instruction on how to fly.

Once she had everything that she would need she changed out of her workout clothes and into a white T-shirt, black cargo pants, and her black combat boots. For a moment as she stuffed her old clothes into her bag she had second thoughts. She had no clue how to fly a jet. Once she had it in the air she could set it on auto pilot, but first she had to manually pull it out of the hangar and make it fly. Not to mention that landing also had to be done manually. This was probably a bad idea but… to heck with it. She needed out of that place and she didn't care how she did it, even if she had to crash-land. Tony could pay for it, anyway.

She just about grabbed her bag to leave but something stopped her. Was she really expecting to just go out there and steal a S.H.I.E.L.D. jet in broad daylight without any form of plan at all? She almost snorted at the naivety of the notion. Once she was inside the hangar she would likely have to stay until she made her move because she highly doubted anyone could just walk in there when it was night time. She would probably need a high clearance badge or something like that, and she didn't have the time or resources to get one. So she strapped her bag to her shoulder so that she wouldn't have to make a return trip for it later.

She made her way through the halls quickly and took extra care to watch out for any of her three trainers who would likely ask annoyingly sympathetic questions. Thankfully she didn't run into anyone that she knew and made it to the hangar in a decent amount of time.

The hangar was huge and inconveniently too busy for Tyler to go unnoticed if she was lurking around the jets. So, she looked to the right and saw that to the very back of the room were metal stairs that led to the catwalks up above. While the raised floors weren't completely hidden from view, a lot less people would see her and she would be able to see every jet in the room. It was her best bet.

She climbed the stairs and made it to the middle of the catwalk that ran across the length of the hangar without being stopped or questioned. Once there, she sat down and let her feet dangle over the edge as she studied the floor below.

There were more types of jets and planes than Tyler could count, but the only model she had been familiarized with was a black fighter that was supposed to be for special ops. In that sense, it would probably be the hardest to get her hands on. But she just couldn't stay holed up in that ship for any longer, so no matter what, she was going to do it.

From what it looked like, a few of the black jets' cockpits remained open while a guard watched over them from the inside. Clint had said that they were almost always prepped and ready for flight in case an emergency mission popped up, which happened often. Apparently the only reason Clint and Natasha weren't sent on any of those missions was because they were too busy training Tyler.

Was she really that valuable? When she had first arrived she truly had no intention of staying too long. She had no idea why she chose to remain there. It could have been because of Jackie, but she didn't think that was it. So why?

Tyler kept her gaze on the people who moved in the proximity of the black jets and found that there was hardly a second that no one was outside of the jet, and absolutely zero time that the jet was empty. There was always someone inside, probably to make sure no one like her tried to access the jet when they weren't supposed to. She hoped that at night there would be a lot less people roaming around so that she would only have to deal with the few patrol guards.

About an hour later, no one had noticed or at least cared about where Tyler was, but she felt vibrations through the metal that was a sure sign of someone about to walk around the corner. At first she thought of just staying there and hoping that whoever was walking by wouldn't ask questions, but then she heard a dreadfully familiar voice. Without thinking about it, she pushed herself over the edge of the catwalk and hung onto it upside down. She pushed her feet through a support bar underneath the walkway so that she wouldn't be too obvious to the people below, and then she shifted her bag to be on her stomach so that it also didn't hang too low. She breathed as quietly as she could through her nose and silently thanked Steve for all of the strength training she had received from him or else she'd probably fall to the floor after only a few seconds of holding herself there.

"Of course I'm worried," Clint was saying as he and Natasha walked along the catwalk. "I can't find her anywhere and when I checked in her room all of her things were gone, except her phone which was smashed to pieces. What do you think that means?"

Tyler silently willed for the two to keep walking, but they stopped practically on top of her and Clint leaned his arms on the safety rail. It might not have been that much of a problem if the catwalks were solid, but they had holes in the metal that Tyler was sure would give her away. However, the two agents seemed too occupied in their discussion to have looked down. Tyler hoped it remained that way.

"It could mean anything," Natasha reassured. "Maybe she decided to have a sleepover with Jackie or something and thought that it wouldn't really be a sleepover unless she brought all of her things."

"You don't think Jackie's the first person I asked?" Clint replied with heavy sarcasm and a glance in Natasha's direction. "She has absolutely no idea where Tyler is. Bruce doesn't either. I asked Maria to check on the security cameras to see if she was anywhere in the open, but she wasn't. How much do you want to bet that she's planning on finding a life boat and jumping into the ocean?"

Natasha huffed and leaned with her back on the bars and her arms folded over her chest. Tyler would've reacted in the same way if she wasn't busy both hiding and doing her best not to loose the strength in her arms. Her muscles weren't shaking yet, but she knew that if the conversation persisted too much longer then they would.

"That's absurd, Clint," Natasha scoffed. "Tyler's not that stupid. If she's anywhere then it's in some hidden corner of storage or something. She just needs some space, she'll come around soon."

Clint sighed and looked at Natasha.

"I hope you're right," he said quietly. Natasha's gaze softened and she turned so that she was facing her partner.

"Why don't we go to the mess hall and eat? Its dinner and I highly doubt Tyler would want to miss it. She's got an appetite that comes close to yours, if that's even possible."

It was then that Tyler noticed something between the two she hadn't before and her brow furrowed. Just how long had they known each other? That moment of silence they shared seemed too heavy for them to just be "partners." Suddenly she realized how little she knew of, not just them, but everyone she had met so far.

In that next moment, Tyler's muscles decided to protest. She gritted her teeth and did her best to keep her breathing as quiet as possible, but she was sure that the agents should have heard her by then. She closed her eyes and urged Clint to hurry up and leave so that she didn't fall or something else embarrassing. She had been done with embarrassing since the first day she arrived at the aircraft carrier.

"Alright," Clint finally said and graced Natasha with a smile that seemed a little forced to Tyler. Natasha smiled back comfortingly and began to make her way to the mess hall. Clint stayed behind for a moment longer and Tyler found that she increasingly wanted to scream at him to move. Her arms were shaking with the effort of keeping both her and her bag suspended in the air without much support.

When Clint began walking away Tyler let out a very faint sight of relief, but then something happened she didn't intend. She hadn't realized it before but her bag had been slowly slipping to the side. She noticed it too late to do anything and it fell off of her quite suddenly. It stayed connected to her due to the strap, but the force almost caused Tyler to loose her grip and when the noise from it reached Clint's ears he stopped and whirled around.

Tyler had to hold her breath and grind her teeth together so that she didn't make any grunts from the new strain being placed on her. Clint stayed there for what seemed a millennia as his eyes scanned the catwalk to find what made the noise. Tyler willed him to stop looking and turn around, but he didn't seem inclined to do so. He took a couple steps forward so that he was right above Tyler and she was sure he was going to find her, but then a heavenly call came from where Natasha had disappeared.

"Clint, is something wrong?" the female assassin called to him. Clint paused to look over the area in front of him one last time before he turned around and proceeded to the exit. As he was turning Tyler thought she saw his eyes look across the floor where she was, but he didn't stop turning. That was way too close for comfort. She had no idea how he missed her.

"No, nothing," he replied to Natasha, "just thought I heard something."

Tyler waited a few excruciating moments before she let go of the air she had held in her lungs and shuffled so that she could once again be on the top of the catwalks. She rolled onto her back when she had pulled herself up and stayed there with her breaths coming out staggered. That was something that she didn't want to have to go through ever again. Her arms quite heavily agreed.

After a minute or two lying on her back, Tyler hefted herself up into a sitting position and looked around for another place to wait out the last few hours of the day, but unless she went back to ground level there wasn't anywhere that was less seeable than where she was, so she decided to remain there.

Time passed painfully slow, especially for her empty stomach, but when it became eight everything was locked down and everyone exited the hangar, save for a few guards. Tyler took that as her cue and began quickly and quietly making her way down the stairs and toward the area where the fighter jets were resting.

As it turned out, only one jet was left prepped, so that would be the one she would have to take. The only problem was that there wasn't anything around it so she would have to make absolutely sure that the guards wouldn't be able to see her as she ran across the clearing.

Tyler snaked through the maze of planes and barrels with her legs bent so that she was low to the ground. She made sure she was traveling heel-toe to mask as much of the tapping from her boots as she could. A sound from the left reached her ears and she practically dove behind one of the many sets of plastic barrels lining the floor. She waited with her breath held in her throat as the guard passed without falter; she wasn't noticed.

When she was sure he was gone she slowly came around the barrels and once again made her way to the jet. The rest of the way was clear and, thankfully, the cockpit was still open so she didn't have to find a way to do that on her own.

At the edge of the clearing, however, Tyler could see three different guards patrolling. This was going to be the hardest part. She waited and watched for a good fifteen minutes before there was a break in their line of vision. Without a second to think, Tyler took it and was running silently toward the jet.

She made it across the clearing undetected, but as soon as she put her first foot onto the metal platform leading into the cockpit, someone found her.

"Hey, you," the guard called out. "You're not supposed to be here!"

Tyler froze in her spot. Busted.

Ah, sorry for the late post! I was going to post like three days ago, but things kept coming up. T^T Sorry for the wait, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Pretty please review. :3

-KC