X marks the spot

Failed Experiments

She cared too much and never did enough on the front lines, as they'd call it.

She knew it wasn't a flaw, caring. She knew it was a part of being a SHIELD agent, giving a shit about those you fight with and for.

But, as she broke the window to a car, opening the door and fiddling with the car, that she wasn't just that. She wasn't just a mother who hid behind the screen.

It wasn't exactly empowering, but more of a realisation. She wasn't just this, just a mother. She was a survivor. And now she had a chance to right a wrong.

To fix a failure.

To do the one thing she had slowly realised Aaron wouldn't be able to do with this path...

She knew she would have brought more attention, more "Bad assness" to it if she burnt the place down, but she also knew it wasn't in her nature. What she was about to do? That was. Never cross a mother and get in between her children and all that.

Right now, SHIELD instincts were kicking in.

With them kicking in, she left her vehicle, closing the door and crossing the street, her breath visible to herself as she walked across the road, hands in her long jacket. She wasn't trying to look inconspicuous, it was only an attempt to not be cold.

This world wasn't her's anymore. But it was never her's in the first place, she only entered it out of a belief for what was right. For a belief that people deserved protection.

Now that protection was going more personal, now it was meaning something to her.

Sure, she'd saved people, and she liked doing it, making sure people were safe; but she didn't really know those people, as selfish as it would sound.

But this was different. And she knew that.

She put her picks to the door, listening in closely for what she wanted. She fiddled with them a bit more, before finally getting that click that she wanted...

The door opened, slowly. Inside, the lights were on. The lights were of the cheap kind, not too bright and not a massive radius, but the amounts of them helped pave the way. There was a long corridor that awaited her.

She was thankful for hte lighting, however, being able to move to the shadows. Slowly, she moved her leg forward, placing the foot on the ground and, carefully, dragging the other one up into the air. One after the other, just like herself, May, and Coulson had learnt on stealth ops.

She came to a light that was breaking the shadows she had been using. She looked ahead, squinting a bit...no movement. So, she hopped across, catching herself before she could fall.

She continued on her path. She went through corridor after corridor, staying in the shadows for as much as she could before jumping through the light back into those shadows she used to call home.

Finally, however, she came across what she knew would be there. A guard, or rather a member of the gang that had caused her so much grief.

She knew he could let him go by...let him go and live. But, this gang had hurt her. Maybe not this person, but he was in association.

SHIELD used to do that sometimes, after all...

So, she aimed her pistol, no silencer attached, and pulled the trigger...

Aaron jolted a trigger being pulled. But, as he refocused himself, he realised that there were shouts...people were panicking...

Fuck it, now or never. He shifted out of the chair, collapsing on the floor for a second. His wounds hadn't fully healed, but he was still moving.