COLLEEN PINCHES the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes. Inhaling deeply to hold it together, she's practically invisible to Steve, Natasha, Clint, Chen, and Veronica. They're arguing over where the 'main' Hydra base is, unaware that they've got it all wrong; there is no one main base, there are different stations each equipped with a team of ruthless soldiers and wicked scientists. They aren't just holed up in one base, they are scattered. But, just like their previous meeting, Colleen can't seem to get more than a few words in at a time.

Maybe the problem isn't them, maybe she just isn't assertive enough. Is she speaking too quietly? Is that it?

Whatever it is, Colleen can't take much of being ignored for much longer. She needs to suck up her pride and push down her anxieties of interrupting and correcting three Avengers—and two mean business women—so they can finally start to make some real progress in saving the child experiments still in Hydra's custody.

Letting her hand fall to the table, Colleen blurts, "You're all wrong, you know that, right?"

For once, the room goes quiet and all eyes turn to Colleen. She refuses to crack under the pressure and instead uses it to fuel her confidence.

When Steve sends her a questioning look, she motions to the map drawn up on the marker board. "First of all, I already took down that base you have circled, so you can go ahead and mark that off."

Chen frowns and turns to the map, analyzing the mistake.

"Also," Colleen continues, tapping her fingers against the table, "there isn't a main base where they're harboring all their weapons and best scientists."

Veronica shoots Colleen a vile look. "Then where do you suppose they're keeping all that?"

Colleen almost shrinks back at her snappy tone, but she takes a deep breath and straightens in her seat, her chin lifted slightly. "It's distributed throughout all the bases, they wouldn't risk keeping everything in one spot. They aren't stupid, they know that they're being targeted, so they made sure that to be defeated we'd have to literally burn down every last base. Which, by the way, is next to impossible since they could literally be anywhere, not just in. . ." Colleen narrows her eyes on the map at the front of the room. "Russia and Eastern Europe."

Veronica steps in front of the map with a permanent scowl. Clint, Steve, and Natasha look impressed. Colleen mentally pats herself on the back for impressing three Avengers. While she would love to throw a little mental celebration for herself in her brain, Chen's cold stare steadies on her and pierces through her happiness, instantly killing it.

"Why are you just now telling us this?" she demands, and Colleen swears she hears a hint of suspicion in her tone.

Colleen shrugs, suddenly feeling incredibly small. "You all kept talking over me."

Steve lifts a hand to his lip, running the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip in thought. Thankfully, he doesn't look mad that Colleen has been withholding information. "What else do you know?"

Colleen looks at her laptop in front of her and scrolls through the encrypted database. "I have a lead to where another location is. I recently intercepted a message, but I'm still trying to decode it and track it." Colleen taps the flash drive plugged into the side of the laptop. "Plus, I stole this when I was escaping Hydra the first time, and it has helped me figure out where three other bases are. I'm sure there are new bases that don't have records on here, but there are still some that I haven't tracked down yet."

Chen pulls an incredulous face and extends a hand. "Give me the flash drive."

Colleen's brows pull together, but then she realizes that if she wants to help those trapped kids as soon as possible, she shouldn't keep the information to herself. She knows that a day stuck in Hydra's walls is another day in hell.

Reluctantly, Colleen unplugs the drive from her laptop and sets it in Chen's open palm. Her fingers fold over the plastic and trap it in her hand like a cage.  She holds it up to her face and inspects it like she's expecting it to be something other than what it is: a hard drive that stores information.

Satisfied, Chen turns to Colleen with a raised brow. "Anything else you'd like to share with the class?"

Embarrassment. Colleen's cheeks warm at her mocking tone and she just keeps her mouth shut and shakes her head. Her eyes fall to her hands sheepishly.

Chen nods like she was expecting that reaction. She walks back to her fancy laptop and plugs the drive in, a holographic screen flickering in the space above the table. Colleen watches, entranced by the technology, while everyone else—even hundred-year-old Steve—has no reaction. Holograms must be a normal thing around here.

The team works for four more tiring hours. Despite her major contribution, Veronica and Chen still make Colleen feel as though she hasn't helped at all, that she's lower than them. No, she doesn't have any formal education and she's the youngest in the room, but she has more experience with Hydra than anyone else in the room. She also seems to have the most motivation to reach their mission. What else do they want Colleen to do?

Once they call it a day, Colleen is relieved to leave the scrutiny and slips out the door before anyone else. With her laptop under her arm, she makes her way straight to the elevator and presses the up arrow. A few seconds pass, then a soft ding and the doors open.

There's someone else standing in the elevator, and as soon as Colleen looks up from the floor and meets his eyes behind rose-tinted glasses, her breath hitches.

Tony Stark.

Colleen tries to play it off and gives him a small smile as she walks into the confined space of the elevator. He flashes a smile in return, but when Colleen ducks her head and lets her golden hair shield her face, his curious eyes trail over her. It's only her second day here and she hasn't met him yet. Although she knew it was bound to happen eventually, she didn't expect to run into him in the elevator.

"Going up?" Tony asks since he's standing in front of the buttons.

Colleen nods and tries to get ahold of herself. She always thought she didn't get starstruck, and although she was a little shocked about meeting Spider-Man, this is just different. She has heard Tony Stark's name everywhere despite never intentionally listening for it. "Yeah, um, I'm going to the resident floor."

"The resident floor," Tony repeats, reaching out and tapping the top button. The doors close and the elevator continues moving up. With his hands folded in front of him, Tony glances at Colleen standing stiffly beside him. "Colleen, right?"

Colleen's brow furrows. She looks up at Tony, lips parted slightly. "How did you—"

"I know everything," Tony remarks, turning and looking straight forward at the closed doors.

Colleen nods, narrowing her eyes curiously at the billionaire beside her. Asking him to come see the kids crosses her mind, but she throws that idea away as soon as it comes. That would be weird. She just met him, she can't ask him to visit the kids because he's their idol. Besides, he's Tony Stark; he's probably swamped in super hero and business stuff that she wouldn't understand.

The elevator slows to a halt at Tony's stop. As the elevator doors slide open, he steps out, but not before giving Colleen a brief smile on his way out.

When the doors close and the elevator starts again, Colleen makes a small humph sound. She's heard a lot about Tony—that he's arrogant, proud, and selfish. Her interaction with him, although short, was pleasantly surprising.

The second day of staying at the Avengers facility isn't even over yet, and she has already met Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, and Iron Man. Colleen wonders who else she'll run into while living here.

•••

After giving Sloan a bath and putting all the kids to bed, Colleen retreats back to her room to grab some clothes to work out in. After finding out that there is a whole gym on the resident floor that she wasn't even aware of, she has been itching to work out. She hopes she doesn't run into any Avengers training, or else she'll just turn right around and work out in the comforts of her room where she won't feel intimidated. Colleen steps into her oversized closet and pulls out her track shorts, a sports bra, and a tank top. She slips into the athletic apparel before slipping on her running shoes and lacing them up.

Colleen straightens and checks the clock. Ten minutes after nine.

As she turns to the door, she halts mid-step. She sets her hands on her hips and looks at Sloan idling in the doorway, her body swimming in Colleen's old shirt as a night gown. The little girl rubs a fist in her eye as a yawn stretches her jaw.

Colleen sighs and drops her hands from her hips. "What're you doing up? I just put you to bed."

Sloan's shoulders rise and fall. "Can't sleep."

"Why not?" Colleen asks, stepping over and kneeling beside her to be more level with her. She pushes the her curly hair out of her face and reads the fear in her stormy blue eyes.

Sloan shrugs again, her bottom lip slightly jutting out. "Scared."

Colleen purses her lips. She already knows that this is going to be a habit. However, she's itching to work up a good sweat and use her muscles.

"I'm going to go work out, but you can wait here for me if you want?" Colleen proposes. "You can get all curled up in my bed and I'll put a movie on, how about that?"

Sloan nods. A tired, "Okay" slips past her lips, making Colleen smile. She ruffles her mane of ginger curls before scooping her off the ground and carrying her to the bed, setting her down and pulling the covers up to her chin. Sloan props her head up on a pillow and watches as Colleen walks across the room to turn on the flatscreen TV on the opposite wall. Some random news channel is on before Colleen flips through the channels. Eventually an animated movie with talking fish comes on.

"How's this?" Colleen asks, reading the title of the movie. "Finding Nemo? It looks like it just started, too."

Sloan nods and cuddles further into the covers. Colleen smiles and, as she passes the bed to the door, plants a kiss on her forehead.

"I'll be back up before the movie gets over," she tells her, though Sloan isn't listening, already entranced by the movie. With a relieved sign, Colleen steps out of her room and softly closes the door behind her.

The hall is dimly lit. She's happy to see that the lights under Ben's and Anna Beth's doors are still out—at least the two of them can fall asleep in their new rooms. As she silently walks down the hall and through the kitchen to get to the gym at the other end of the floor, Colleen pulls her hair up into a high ponytail.

The gym is, thankfully, empty. The lights automatically flicker on as Friday senses her entrance. Unlike the public gym she used to visit, this one looks brand new and clean. All the machines and equipment are shiny like they were just polished. Colleen takes a quick walk through the gym before deciding to hop on the treadmill after a quick stretch. She peels her tank top from her body, not wanting to drench it in sweat.

She starts off in a slow jog. Then, as her legs gets warmed up, she ups the speed until she's eventually sprinting. As her lungs pump, her mind slips and wanders off to various places.

Her eyes close. Despite the sounds of her breaths and the treadmill filling the room, her mind falls into a place that shuts them out. The room disappears.

"Faster."

The gym morphs into a smaller, more dimly-lit room. Colleen hasn't been in that room for four years, but she recognizes it immediately. She doesn't think she could ever forget it.

"Faster."

There's two other people in the room, one observing Colleen as she overexerts her body and burns more energy than her body has. But she can't stop. She has to push herself. The other person in the room jots notes and stands behind the other like his shadow. Both are wearing white lab coats.

"Faster."

Sweat drips from her temple. A burning sensation grows in her chest as her lungs struggle to keep up with her body's movements.

"Faster."

Colleen bites down on her bottom lip as the pain grows. Her leg muscles feel weak and strained, and her arms tire from pumping along with her body. Her breath hitches as her lungs refuse to swallow any air.

"Faster."

"I—I can't."

A disappointed look crosses the observer's features. Fear strikes though Colleen. She can't stop, but she can't keep going faster, stuck at the impossibly fast pace she's currently running. Tears collect in her eyes, but she refuses to let them show. A sharp pain in the skin of her abdomen shocks Colleen back into reality.

A gasp rips through her lungs as her eyes snap open and she immediately slams her hand down on the off button. The treadmill stills just as Colleen's knees buckle. She catches herself, one hand up on the handle and the other on the tread below her. Shallow breaths cause her chest to erratically rise and fall as the ghost of the pain escapes her.

Her hand shoots to cover her stomach where the pain was, almost like she's expecting to feel the disturbing warmth of blood there, but all she feels under the pads of her fingers is raised skin. Colleen pulls her hand back and looks at it, her shoulders relaxing as she sees that it's not covered in blood.

Chin tilting down to her chest, Colleen looks to her stomach where the scar is etched across her skin. It starts about an inch or two above her hip and slopes up to the skin above her belly button.

She doesn't know why she's expecting there to be a pool of blood on the ground around her, especially since the observer and the note taker are dead. She killed them, so why do they still haunt her? Why do they still have control over her?

Colleen tucks a strand of her blonde hair that fell from her ponytail behind her ear. Breaths finally evening out, she raises an arm to her forehead to wipe away the sweat glistening on her forehead.

Scars are proof that you've survived, right? They're there to remind you of how strong you are—but when Colleen sees her scars and she's reminded of everything that has happened, it just makes her feel weak. The scar on her face makes her feel weak. The scar on her torso makes her feel weak. The scar on her thigh makes her feel weak. The burn scars on her back from the explosion that nearly killed her when she saved Sloan makes her feel weak. They all take her back to the moments she got them, and they make her want to curl up in a ball and cry. They make her want to be comforted by a mother despite never experiencing a parental figure other than the Hydra scientists who fed her after experimenting on her.

Pushing herself back up to her feet, Colleen picks up her shirt discarded on the treadmill handle and pulls it over herself, her scars littering her back and abdomen covered. She pulls her hair out from her collar and sets her hands on her hips to allow more air into her lungs.

As much as her body yearns to lift some weights and go at it at the punching bag, Colleen doesn't think her mind can take it tonight. Maybe it's because Hydra has been on her mind more than it usually is. Whatever the reason is, Colleen leaves the gym before finishing her work out.