Always Have and Always Will.

Chapter 1 - Special Assignment, my ass...

Chapter 1 – Special Assignment, my ass...

Four years later - Present...

Tick, Tick, Tick... The continuous droning of the timer was buzzing in my ear, not letting me concentrate on the task at hand.

"Come on, love. You can do it..." A seductive voice encouraged me on the earpiece.

"I know, I can." I stated plainly, not giving her the chance to know that she was getting under my skin.

"Come home to me..." I could imagine her grinning on the other end. I shivered a little, getting all hot at what she actually meant.

"I would, but you'd have to stop distracting me for that." I said, tracing the cutter along the circuit and it's connections.

"Hmphhh.. You're no fun.." I could imagine her pouting now... Which didn't help my situation.

"What we do, it's not supposed to be fun." I stated and swiped the sweat off of my forehead

"No reason we can't make it fun." She stated.

"You're probably right." I said, and cut a red wire.

Tick, Tick, Tick... The droning didn't stop.

"I'm always right... You do realize, you just armed the bomb." She stated calmly.

"Yup." I said, popping the 'p', cutting open the insulation of the wire to reveal even thinner wires.

"Okay, tell me when you're about to be done." She said.

"You'll be the first to know, Amber." I said, and went back to work, sorting through the wires.

Two years ago, Stark, who was now my partner in crime, literally, had recruited me in to Hawkeye. Hawkeye was an undercover initiative that recruited young agents like me. It wasn't your average undercover agency. They recruited agents while they were just out of highschool, gave them a purpose when life didn't. Trained them in their strengths to be the very best and to protect with their lives. None of the factions of the government were aware of it's existence except the President of the United States and a few trusted people.

They made you, well, more like forced you to leave your old life behind and start a new, secretive one, however, with a catch. They understood that as young teenagers, people are impulsive, and rash and whatnot. So, they keep us in regular contact with our families, just to keep us motivated. However, friends weren't included in that equation. It was strictly close family, and regular contact meant, one video call in every three months on a secure line.

They recruited you as soon as you were eighteen, as you're legally allowed to leave home and pursue other ventures then. It was almost like a university, they made us continue our studies, but at the same time, trained us to be deadly field agents. I sound like a robot probably because they made me one. Emotions have no place on the battlefield. It's not that I wasn't sad to leave everything behind, but everything that I've come to know and understand in the past few years is that this is bigger than any of us.

I had met Amber shortly after being recruited. We had trained together, and had quickly become the best of friends. In this line of work, you needed friends to keep you sane. Stryker, an expert in hand-to-hand combat had evaluated both of us and determined that her expertise lay in Tech, while mine was in combat.

He trained us in hand-to-hand combat, me more than her. She was trained to become a hacker, by one of the best men in the profession, Shadow. Shadow was the one who located potential agents by hacking into databases and locking on to the very best.