Of The Wolves And The Orphans

You Will Never Take Me Alive

Hawkeye's P.O.V.

I stand in the corner of the hospital room, watching the rush of activity. It isn't the first time, nor the last I suspect, that nurses and doctors will be in a flurry over my day's work. No one has noticed me enough to give me crap about being here and the ones that have noticed don't give a damn. Being a field agent/assassin does give you special privileges.

From the conversation I'm picking up, she has a broken nose, her burn, and one broken rib. Everything should be fine if she is careful, but if not, she would be in danger of puncturing her lung. But something else intrigues me. She seems to have some sort of old injury in her knee that they found through CAT-scans and x-rays. She apparently took a tumble at one point and tore her A.C.L, M.C.L, and cleanly broke her tibia. It seemingly wasn't treated (understandably since this happened after she "died") so the muscles were still healing as much as possible, but the bone had already healed wrong. It had not been set correctly, thus the wrong healing.

On impulse, I turn heel and leave the room with Keira knocked out and covered in tubes and wires and doctors. I head back to my cell like quarters through the maze of the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. I smile a little grimly to myself, at least Keira can't escape THIS facility if she tries.

I enter my room and grab the file sitting on the dresser. It's Keira's file. I flip it open, looking for any clues to the injury. I scan over school, she got straight A's even when she was young. That catches my eye as well. She was homeschooled and she skipped a grade, obviously smart. Then I look to extracurricular activities. She is apparently very musical. She took vocals, piano, violin, and flute, and was always the best at each one. She danced as well. I thought over, no, no that wouldn't give such a big injury, so I keep reading.

Aha! Here it is! I think. She did gymnastics since age three. She must have kept going with it even after her alleged "death." From the information here she was obviously one of the best, as she was in everything. It looked like a bright future.

Not knowing is what peeves me. I know her actions, but I don't know her motives, which are even more important than the actions themselves. I remember her words earlier, "They think they know you by looking at a piece of paper that has your name on it."

The woman's got a point.

"Deep in thought Barton?" a feminine voice slices through my thoughts. "You didn't even hear me walk in."

My head jerks up and I see Natasha leaning against my doorpost. A wry smile tugs at my lips. "I got a lot on my mind."

"So I heard. Word is around here you took a girl under your wing. Everyone knows it was you because she came completely bashed up."

Another wry grin appears. Natasha had been on a mission for the past month or so, explaining her absence. She never stopped working, not even after she saved the world. Personally, I think, she did it to pay her debt to S.H.I.E.L.D. (and me), but I also think she had paid it a long time ago.

"The kid's got talent. If we can get her on board is a whole other matter," I muttered, running my hands through my hair frustrated.

Natasha takes a seat next to me and pulls the file from my hands. Her hazel eyes dart over it as she takes it all in. I know what she is doing without having to ask. She is taking in all the facts and turning them over in her head, reconstructing this girl's whole life from the moment she was born. Natasha is using her interrogation skills to get inside the girl's head and understand what happened to her.

"She is an overachiever. She got straight A's and was skipped ahead of her grade, not to mention she was homeschooled and all testing scores show how much smarter those are. Didn't have any criminal record, not even so much as a mark at school. This is a completely perfect record. It says here she was aspiring to be a Marine, but she loves dance, art, and music as well. She had a perfect record, but now she is on the Most Wanted list. She threw herself into her sport, gymnastics, yet she developed all parts of her life. For one semester it says she wanted to be a Marine, and then the next it says she wanted to be an actress, and then it flips again. This girl is a living contradiction. She's at war with herself. It almost seems—"