Picking Up The Pieces

3. The Dream's Discovery

   It wasn't hard to get accustomed to my promise with Coulson. I was given a room, an official lanyard, and made a high level agent. Besides meeting a few members of Coulson's team, I spent most of my time with Fitz and Jemma, answering their questions on Avengers and helping them in the lab. Fitz face lit up with glee when I told him about how Fury escaped the Winter Soldier.

"I created that," he kept muttering to himself as we wandered the halls. "I saved Nick Fury."

When all of the others were sleeping, I was up searching for Spiderman online. Somehow, he had all of my memories from before HYDRA kidnapped me, and I didn't want to waste any precious time. That was the lie I kept telling myself every night, not admitting the truth that I was too afraid to sleep. My memories terrified me. I kept going back to the one where I sucked the life out of a HYDRA agent. It was horrifying.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the look of agony on his face as light faded from his eyes.

How much of a monster was I on the inside?

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"Isabel, are you alright?" Coulson's voice rang, concerned, as he watched me sip my fifth cup of coffee. I blearily rubbed my eyes with my free hand.

"I'm fine, Coulson," I assured him, yawning. "Just tired, that's all."

"Please tell me you'll be in a good state. Talbot's coming tomorrow." My cup smashed across the floor, and I grabbed a paper towel from the counter behind me to sop it up.

"Talbot?" I said as I mopped up the mess. I made sure my metal hand came in contact with the glass shards instead of my organic one. "General Talbot? Shouldn't I stay away from him until the Accords blow over?" I looked up at Coulson, who merely shrugged.

"You're a SHIELD agent now, Miss Stark," he brought up. "I'm in charge, so it's my responsibility."

"I will never forgive myself if the feds take down your entire operation, sir."

"Isabel," Coulson said softly. I stood up with the glass in my metal hand, paper towel in the other, and stared at him. "You're safe here, and you're helping us. You don't need to worry." Jemma poked her head in the room.

"Sir?" she asked. "Fitz wants Isabel in the control room. Hopefully she can help keep Daisy out for longer?"

Ahh, Daisy Johnson. Her name was everywhere here; she was like a celebrity. At the moment, she was top priority.

"I think I came up with a solution that will last for a while," I offered. I looked to Coulson for support, and he gave me a nod of acknowledgement. Jemma and I raced through the corridors, and I found Fitz wasting no time.

"Ahh, yes, thank goodness," he said, not even looking at me as he concentrated on his codes. "I could really use more help." I noticed his laptop on a nearby chair, and I quickly picked it up and started to program.

"The good thing about living with Tony Stark," I hummed as I typed, "is that you'll receive some of the best computer skills you could ever learn. He started teaching me after I hacked into J.A.R.V.I.S. and reprogrammed him to only listen to me."

"Why'd you do that?" Fitz inquired as he slammed a button down on a server.

"He had locked me out of his lab because I accidentally blew up six of his Iron Legion robots," I smiled. After the code was complete, I entered it into SHIELD's database, and a blue switch lit up beside me. I laughed as I pushed it up. "Have fun with that, Daisy!"