The Seventh Avenger

Prologue

          EDITED: 18/11/2021

           For what seems like the one-hundredth time since I first woke up in the bare room, I wrench my hand-cuffed hands hard and fast from where they are forced to rest on the arms of the chair that I am currently in to try and break them. My feeble efforts are in vain, however, as the movement only causes pain to flare along my wrists where the metal digs into my skin. Cursing, a huff of annoyance seeps past my thin lips as I drop my hands in defeat, ignoring the pain that is left behind.

          Prominent, throbbing, stinging pain.

           Something that I have been forced to grow accustomed to in the past ten months.

           Growing up in a family full of SHIELD agents had greatly influenced my decision in becoming an agent myself. Once I was old enough and an attempted astrophysics degree didn't end up working out, I enrolled into the SHIELD academy and quickly worked my way through the vigorous training program. Every assignment, every drill, every single piece of hell that my tutors threw at me I completed with an equal ferocity which lead to promising and incredible results. I graduated from the academy at the age of nineteen and was awarded a level seven clearance. Though not unheard of for agents to reach this level at such a young age, it is uncommon. My ties with the founder of SHIELD and the Director at the time increased the chances of this happening, but I still worked hard to get where I had been. According to my uncle, Clint Barton, it is something that hasn't happened since my mother was my age. A gifted and skilled agent, she had been someone to quickly move up through the ranks of SHIELD and to gain the reputation of being one of the best SHIELD agents of her generation.

          Not that it had helped her in the long run. A bullet to the head in Russia during a mission had left me an orphan at twelve years old, with no father to take care of me.

          The topic of who my father is had always been a touchy subject for Stacey Hathaway. Whenever I tried to discuss it with her, my mother would either blatantly tell me to drop the subject or she would avoid answering the question altogether. Her secretiveness on the matter and overall distant personality had effectively put a tight stain on our relationship, and even after her death, I have yet to truly forgive her for her lack of openness with me all those years. Perhaps if she had even let slip even the smallest titbit of information about his identity, then things could have been different.

          With no knowledge as to who my father was, the only other person that could have taken me in was Clint. He and his then-pregnant wife Laura had been more than happy to do so, so I packed up my belongings, said goodbye to my friends and life in San Francisco before leaving it all behind to move into Clint's hidden farmhouse. Soon baby Cooper was born followed by Lila a couple of years later. I was finally getting the loving family that I had always been denied these years, and I was fast on my way to becoming one of SHIELD's best agents.

          Every single mission that SHIELD sent my way, I completed with ease. Sometimes they would be solo, other times I would help Nat and Clint with theirs-every now and again I would also complete tasks with my then-boyfriend Grant Ward. Whatever the case, and whether or not I did it with others or alone, I always succeeded. Never once failing.

            It was because of this, that Alexander Pierce thought that I was best suited for a task in Greece. He had insisted that it was me who completed the mission and I hadn't fought him on the matter. I mean, the head of SHIELD insisting that you single-handedly complete a mission? You'd be idiotic to say no. So I had gladly accepted, before heading off to Greece to do the job.

             My assignment had been simple: find the target who had infiltrated SHIELD and had stolen valuable files, take the files back and arrest the target before calling Phil Coulson for extraction. It was certainly easier compared to some of my past missions, and I had quickly completed it almost effortlessly. But the night that I was supposed to meet Coulson at the airport after I had handed over the target, I had been jumped. When I was walking out of the hotel and towards by car, eight men-eight trained men- appeared out of nowhere and attacked me. I tried my best to fight and I managed to injure two of them- but it wasn't enough. They easily overtook me and knocked me out cold, before dragging me into my own personal hell.