‹ Prequel: Glass Heart
Sequel: Across the Universe

Hollow Scars

The Initiative

What went on next took several hours. The notorious duo of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Scarlett, and Tony barely recalled the lengthy process of escaping the MedCo building. The sound of fighting had echoed through the corridors above while S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, military troops, and rebel forces dealt with the unnatural and half alive soldiers that met them near the front of the building. The undead troops had been sent outside as guards to provide a distraction while the more significant members of MedCo made their way out in secret.

Inside those guards who had been willing to risk their lives for their employers had barricaded the doors and made one last stand that had taken two hours for S.H.I.E.L.D. forces to get through. Explosives had been set up along the hallways of the main floor and smoke bombs had gone off at every entrance while some of the unguarded doors had been barricaded. Thankfully the explosions that had gone off hadn't triggered any of the other explosive devices that were hidden well underneath the main floor as a self destruct mechanism. As it turned out, the device that Clint and Natasha had deactivated had controlled explosives placed only on the two basement levels of the facility. If triggered they would've destroyed the remainder of any experiments being done within the facility and would've caused the rest of the building to collapse on itself.

At long last after the battle had been waged and won, Rhodey as the WarMachine as well as a team sent from the rebel group that had aided Tony earlier made their way to the lowest level of the building where they then discovered Clint, Natasha, and Scarlett all awake. Tony had fallen unconscious at long last, leaning against Scarlett's shoulder, after several failed attempts to wake himself up. The torture he'd experienced had been too much for him and left him feeling exhausted. Scarlett was sure that she would've done the same if she hadn't been absolutely terrified that Tony was in worse condition than she thought he was. She had to stay awake even if only to keep an eye on him.

She had the irrational fear that his arc reactor would fail while he slumbered and being unfamiliar with the technology that powered it, she was unsure if she had the means to save him. Despite some arguing from Natasha about how she was doing just fine the group was sent in two separate helicopters to a secure hospital in Moscow. The flight seemed to last forever, at least for Scarlett. She had trouble staying awake and felt nauseated by the motions of the copter and the sound of the wind rushing past. Her stomach was objecting to the lack of proper food and hydration for over twenty four hours. The last month had done a number on her already ailing health. It would take weeks, maybe even months, for her to right herself if that was even possible. There was a distinct possibility that Scarlett would never again be the woman she once was.

One of the S.H.I.E.L.D. medics had put her arm in a sling but it was tingling and uncomfortable and she partially wondered if it would heal properly after what it had been through. On her way out of the helicopter, with every intention of following Tony who was laid out on a stretcher, she'd collapsed.

Exhaustion had finally caught up with her and she fell flat on her face on the landing pad. Thankfully her body had chosen the best of places to fall unconscious: a hospital. She vaguely recalled conversations of dealing with press that surrounded the billionaire wherever he went, but none of it had made much sense while she'd been in and out of consciousness.

Clint had managed to make it out of the fight with only a few minor bruises and scrapes and very little else. He'd be sore and achy for a few days but that was lucky in comparison to those he'd fought alongside. Natasha had indeed suffered a concussion as her comrades had suspected but she'd also fractured a bone in her forearm during the fall she'd taken down the stairwell where she'd used an explosive device on to open the door overhead. How she'd managed to deal with the pain of a fracture through the rest of their adventure she would never reveal to any of them, but she'd been praised and teased by the others for it throughout the rest of her days.

Tony had suffered no permanent nerve damage from the electrical torture he'd suffered through at the hands of Mikhail. MedCo hadn't intended to do any permanent harm to him and when they had attached the electrodes to his flesh they'd done so strategically in places where the voltage would cause pain but not actual prolonged suffering. As he had suspected, they had wanted him intact despite calling him flawed and lesser important than Scarlett on multiple occasions. There was no way that a company like MedCo would take the gift of Tony Stark as a prisoner for granted.

Mikhail had specialized in head games and had succeeded a number of times especially over the past few weeks. Mikhail, of course, had been pronounced dead on site. Officially the story was that he had committed suicide, since it had later been revealed that he was an important member of the Russian police force.

Criminal charges had been lined up against him for years by the same force that employed him but had never been concrete enough to put him in prison or release him of his position amongst their ranks. The story in the paper had announced that Mikhail had put a bullet in his head and written a letter of confession for the many sins that he'd committed over the years after no longer being able to stand the guilt one late night when he'd had a little too much to drink. No one would've ever questioned further except those that already knew better. Mikhail had been a very private person due to the nature of his nefarious dealings.

As for the third and final leader of the diabolical company there had been no evidence of Marcia's existence outside or inside of the MedCo building. For all anyone knew, except for those who really knew, the woman wasn’t even real. Scott had long disappeared, but international criminal charges for terrorism, kidnapping, fraud, and assault had been brought against him that same night. Somehow he'd managed to slip past the forces of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Russian police unnoticed and Scarlett personally thought that Marcia had been behind it.

Even after what she had witnessed she still didn’t think Scott was capable of the cleverness required to orchestrate such a skillful escape. Where she had once suspected that Mikhail was the most formidable of the trio that ran MedCo she was quickly learning that she had been very wrong. Perhaps Marcia didn't have the same blood lust that Mikhail had and specifically not for her, but she was certainly far more malevolent and meticulous than her counterparts had been. In each of her endeavors over the weeks past Scarlett hadn’t run into any sign or Marcia’s existence nonetheless the woman herself. She could barely remember what Marcia looked like.

Erick's body had later been discovered making attempts to pick itself off the ground in spite of the damage that had been done to it during battles prior. After the body had been contained S.H.I.E.L.D. took tissue samples from the corpse in an attempt discern what had caused it to keep returning to life even after the colossal amount of damage that had been done to it. After samples had been taken the body had been incinerated until there was nothing left, as were the other bodies of the soldiers that had been reanimated. They, unlike Erick, had not made any attempts to get back up once they had been incapacitated either by Scarlett, Natasha and Clint or by S.H.I.E.L.D. forces.

Scarlett had been a bit more complicated to treat than the others thanks to the illness that she'd been suffering through for weeks. When she'd been conscious she'd refused to let them do blood work, since she no longer trusted anyone with her blood. Eventually she had agreed to chest x-rays and a few other medical tests that showed that she was very much suffering from walking pneumonia which was what Natasha had called her out on days ago in South Africa before she'd boarded the plane to Moscow. This had required intravenous antibiotics and plenty of bed rest, which once she had her mind settled that Tony was okay and her arm would heal up just fine, she was able to get.

The gunshot on her arm had been easily stitched up. The wound itself hadn't been too terribly bad but rather the blood loss had been what had done so much damage. Her platelet count had been so low by the time that she had been brought to the hospital that they had warned her they might have need to perform a transfusion. But Scarlett's paranoia about her blood ran deep and thankfully when they'd performed the test a second time, however reluctant Scarlett had been about that test, her platelet count had begun to rise and she was in the clear.

Then she'd stayed in and out of consciousness for three days.

Finally on the third day she awoke feeling world’s better than she had felt before going to sleep. The feeling in her arm had returned and she was able to use it as though it had never been injured in the first place. The antibiotics had managed to clear up much of the pain in her chest, but the cough lingered annoyingly. Scarlett got changed into clothing that had been left for her in a white gift box. As she was trying to sort out the nightmare that was her hair the door to her hospital room opened.

A man she didn’t recognize entered the room, dark skinned and dressed all in black from head to toe. He had an eye patch over one eye, scarring from whatever had caused him to need that patch barely visible beneath. Scarlett gave him the once over and knew instantly that he had been sent from S.H.I.E.L.D. There were no other alternatives.

But she also guessed that this particular agent was far more important than those she had dealt with thus far. Scarlett waited expectantly for him to say something, sitting back against the hospital bed so she wouldn’t waste any of the little bit of energy she had regained.

“You know, I’ve been hoping to meet with you in person for a very long time.” Though he was smiling there was still something formidable about him. Scarlett narrowed her eyes at the stranger, pretending to think about whether or not she knew him, when in fact she didn’t. “Scarlett Damien… do you know how long it took us to even figure out your name?”

“If I’d been a little bit more careful you would’ve never known my name.” Scarlett leaned back against the pillows on the bed and folded her arms gingerly over her stomach. Her left arm still throbbed when she moved the wrong way. “Let me guess… S.H.I.E.L.D. Right?”

“Very good. You’re as smart as they warned me you’d be.”

“It wasn’t a very hard conclusion to draw what with the secret agent get up you’ve got going on.” Scarlett rolled her eyes and then looked back to him curiously. “Well?”

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused for us over the last ten years, Scarlett?”

“Probably much more than you think I have. Look if you’re going to arrest me then you should probably get it over with. I will give you fair warning though that if you try to… keep a close eye on me or I’ll be gone before you get me into the car. And you probably won’t make any charges stick except for maybe faking my identity and I can explain that away pretty easily.” She was waiting for the axe to drop. S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried to bring her in repeatedly over the last few weeks to no avail. It was only a matter of time before they caught up with her and did as they pleased without giving her the option.

“You think I’m going to arrest you?” The mysterious man from S.H.I.E.L.D. sat on the edge of the hospital bed and peered at her with his one eye, chuckling heartily under his breath. Scarlett couldn’t help but wonder if she was supposed to draw attention to the patch or not, it seemed to be begging for a few jokes. It took all of her remaining willpower not to make pirate jokes.

“Well, you did just make a pretty big to do about all the trouble I’ve caused you the moment you came in. The only logical conclusion is that you want me behind bars or at the very least in custody so you can use this as some kind of leverage over me.”

A big to do? Do you know that you have intercepted, on multiple occasions, missions that my agents, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who have been trained for years in arts you can only dream of, were supposed to be in charge of? And then without a murmur of what you were up to or of your identity you took care of business. Single handedly I might add. You handled missions that I usually sent teams of at least six to deal with.”

“I’m having a really hard time deciding if you’re complimenting me or if you’re insulting me. I mean it could be the way that you’re saying all this… because this should be something that flatters me, right? But then you come in here like you’re something out of the Matrix and I get the distinct vibe that it was meant an insult.” Scarlett cocked her head to the side curiously, still suspicious that she wasn’t being arrested.

“No, on the contrary Miss Damien, I’m rather fond of your work and your history.” With a laugh the man who implied he was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s leader hunched forward.

“Well, in that case you’re welcome.”

“I don’t believe I thanked you for anything. I’m not sure you know how compliments actually work.”

“You just got finished complimenting me on how great I am at doing your job. I thought that was gratitude. Implied maybe, but it seemed like the appropriate response.” Scarlett’s thoughts were going a mile a minute, trying to judge what it was this strange man was doing in her hospital room. If he wasn’t there to arrest her then what was it he was there to do?

“Well, in that case, from me and my associates, we thank you for the services you have performed. However,” he began cautiously, “over the last two months you’ve grown increasingly reckless… associating with Tony Stark who is known for his continuous reckless behavior is practically a cry for help. You put my agents at risk every step of the way. You put innocent lives at risk. You put yourself at risk more than anyone.” Scarlett didn’t respond to his accusations. She hadn’t intended to put anyone at risk of harm from MedCo. That was exactly what she had been trying to prevent. “You have avoided our help every step of the way.”

“Alright, I admit that I have been pretty reckless and stubborn thus far.” Scarlett cleared her throat and ended up coughing for a solid thirty seconds before she could continue. “But you’re wrong about a few things. MedCo was putting lives in danger with or without my help; that was not my fault. I have done nothing but try to keep others out of harm’s way. Don’t preach to me about putting lives at risk simply because I didn’t take S.H.I.E.L.D. assistance. S.H.I.E.L.D. has done nothing but meddle in my affairs and do so in such a way that they were deceitful and manipulative. I couldn’t tell what was help and what was hurt because of your actions. You sent Agent Pierce after me and threatened me instead of trying to help me. That’s not helping.” When the agent had nothing to say to this, she continued.

“How long has my contact in India been working for you? Does he work for you because of what’s happened to me? How long did you have Natasha spy on me? You manipulated her friendship with me into something twisted and scheming. And how long did you think it was going to be before I got angry about that? I know what I am, sir, but I know what you are, too. So, don’t give me that self righteous bullshit because that mask you’re wearing only covers one eye.”

At first Scarlett thought she’d angered the stranger and waited for the backlash that would surely come. If she walked out of the room right now it was likely she would be accosted by a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who would try to take her in against her will. That was how S.H.I.E.L.D. operated; they were thugs in disguise as heroes.

“You’re a very honest woman. Do you know how rare that is?”

“Well, I’m trying to take this whole… turn over a new leaf thing, seriously.” Scarlett rolled her eyes. “If you want me to believe that you’re not going to have a team come in here and restrain me then you have to be honest with me too. What the hell are you doing here if not to arrest me?”

“Not curious about who I am, are you?”

“I’m definitely curious. But it seems less relevant than what I asked already.”

“Miss Damien, my name is Nick Fury and I’m not here to arrest you.” Fury leaned forward and tapped the spot on the bed in front of him. “I’d much rather offer you an opportunity to do some good in the world.”

“The last I checked that was what I was trying to do before you arrived and I didn’t need your help to do it.” Scarlett scowled at Nick Fury. She’d heard that name before but had never had a face to the name. Now that she did, she could recall times where she’d seen him in the past hidden in the shadows. The eye patch was obviously a dead giveaway but in the shadows and from a certain distance it wasn’t exactly the most noticeable of attributes.

“And what exactly do you call what happened at the end there? Was that us not helping you?” Scarlett clenched her jaw and chose her words wisely before speaking. What was it that she had heard Natasha and Clint talking about when she’d snuck up on the group of experimental soldiers that had cornered them? The way the formidable Nick Fury spoke to her like she owed him anything was getting on her very last nerve. Scarlett didn’t owe anyone anything. Okay, maybe she owed Tony about an hour of explanations and some gratitude to Hawkeye and Black Widow but this new stranger?

She owed him nothing.

“Help? You wouldn’t have helped me there if you’d had it your way. I’d burned too many bridges for your liking. I know how S.H.I.E.L.D. deals with people like me. I’ve seen it happen to others just like you in the same line of work. I watched it happen to the Black Widow. Either I do things your way or you send someone after me. I bet you wanted to send her after me didn’t you? No, they broke the rules to help me. Her and Clint. So no, I don’t want your brand of help. I think I’ll pass.”

“We knew exactly what Natasha would do if we put her in that position, don’t you think we have considered that? She’s a loyal woman.” Nick peered at Scarlett suspiciously through his one good eye. Somehow he knew that convincing her to join them would be fruitless at least on this endeavor. “Natasha has been trying to convince S.H.I.E.L.D. to offer you a position with us for some time now. She mentioned you years ago and then when you popped back up on our radar in Malibu a few weeks ago she talked you up again. Your reputation preceded your appearance of course, but we knew very little about you until she let us in on a few of your secrets.”

“No offense, but Natasha doesn’t know any of my secrets so there wasn’t much to tell.” Scarlett scoffed. “All she knows is what she witnessed and the rest is guessing and conjecture just like the rest of what’s in your little file.”

“She knows more than you think she does.” Fury smiled knowingly, keeping his secrets to himself but implying that he definitely knew something that she didn’t.

“If you don’t mind, let’s get this meeting over with. I’ve dealt with enough shady companies in the last year that I’d like to get this one off my plate so I can move on with my life.”

“Do you really think you can just… move on with your life? And with Tony Stark at that?” Fury nodded toward the door. “With your history and his celebrity someone is bound to leak your shady dealings eventually and then you’ll end up in prison and he’ll end up alone. Is that what you want? And do you think MedCo is really done with you? I saw the pictures from that hospital you were in after escaping Afghanistan, Scarlett. That’s your future if you don’t find a better way out. You might not be so lucky next time.” Scarlett didn’t respond to this mostly because she knew that Fury was right. MedCo wasn’t done with her, not while Scott was still alive. There would be a chance that Marcia would realize how petty an endeavor it was to chase after her but Scott was far beyond logic and reason.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about this before; her history and Tony’s press were very much a big problem in the back of her mind. But as she had addressed on many prior occasions mentally, there were things she had resigned to deal with later and that was one of those things. Now she was forced to deal with it at least partially. How on earth was she going to be with Tony without getting them both arrested? She was practically a terrorist, at least in the eyes of the law.

“Let me guess, you’re going to offer me some grand way out of this, aren’t you?” Scarlett tilted her head to the side.

“I knew I didn’t underestimate your intelligence. Natasha has been trying to convince us to hire you for years. You could be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, a damn good one you know. Our headquarters are… wherever you are and with your vast wealth that you’ve got hidden somewhere or other in this world, I’m sure, you could more than afford to travel. Not to mention your genius.”

“Well, look at all those compliments lined up in a row after basically telling me that if I don’t work for you, you’ll go out of your way to make me a fugitive.” Rolling her eyes, Scarlett felt something churn in the pit of her stomach. The self doubt she thought she’d eradicated when she’d finally managed to save Tony’s life had returned and at full force. She would ruin Tony’s life if she stayed with him. But wouldn’t she ruin it if she left too? He loved her and enough to put his own life on the line! Wasn’t that enough? It wasn’t her place to choose what he did with his life.

But could she really share her burdens with him? The weight on her shoulders had brought her to her knees in the last month and she didn’t want to see it doing the same thing to Tony. Ultimately it could be what destroyed their blossoming romance.

“I didn’t say that. I wanted to make it clear that S.H.I.E.L.D. would do nothing to stop your lengthy and incredibly violent past from being discovered and when you inevitably do get brought for charges we’ll bring you in. And if we have to, we’ll use Stark against you.”

“Fuck you.” Scarlett curled her lip in annoyance, letting the curse slip from her lips before she’d even considered saying it. Nick Fury merely smiled in response, waiting for her to mull over what she’d learned.

“Your brilliant mind will go to waste on the run, Miss Damien.”

“I have demons of my own to slay without chasing after yours.” She countered.

“But we could help make those demons disappear.”

“I am not worried about my past right now.” Scarlett blatantly lied to the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.; her past absolutely terrified her. The impact it would have on Tony and the fallout she would have to look out for was like nothing she had ever dealt with. “When MedCo came for me in Malibu they erased my history. As far as the press is concerned and as far as the law is concerned… I don’t exist. I’m a ghost and I don’t leave behind a paper trail to begin with so… it will be years before anyone figures out who I am and what I’ve done.”

“And what will you do then?”[br /]
“I have time to figure that out and as you’ve pointed out to me several times in such a nasty way, I’m a genius. I suppose you think I got out of Afghanistan on pure luck. There’s no such thing, Fury. Surely you’re not naïve enough to believe in that.”

“You’re an extraordinary woman but you’re playing with fire and you will get burned. That’s not a threat, Miss Damien, but the inevitably of your existence that you’ve been putting on the back burner for years. Talk to Natasha, talk to Clint. I have a whole list of people just like you who went down in flames. Let me help you before you bring the people you care about down with you.” The offer became tempting in that moment for Scarlett. But she couldn’t bring herself to take it. The memory of MedCo and what they had done to her and how she had been manipulated was too fresh in the back of her mind.

“Don’t twist my arm.” Scarlett shook her head and Nick realized he had struck a chord and violently at that. If he continued on threatening her she would lash out and that wouldn’t end well for either one of them.

“I’m not trying to. You’re misinterpreting my intentions.”

“You’re being a manipulative prick, that’s not a misinterpretation.”

“That’s true, but I was leading up to something. Recently a number of extraordinary people with extraordinary talents have been surfacing around the world. Most people would see this as a threat but S.H.I.E.L.D. and myself see this as an opportunity. If you’d let me I’d like to speak to you about the Avengers initiative. I’ve already spoken to Tony Stark about it and he’s been hired on as a consultant. You can participate in whatever capacity you see fit. There’s a particular area I’m interested in having you research. Natasha and Clint are both part of the Avengers. You could be too.”

“I’m not interested, Fury.” Scarlett was stone faced, ready to end the conversation. There were a few things that Nick Fury had convinced her of but joining the Avengers was not on that list. Scarlett’s history had to be dealt with, MedCo had to be dealt with, and Scott had to be dealt with. Scott would become a threat to Tony as soon as he had time to recuperate, she was sure of that.

“I recommend you become our ally before you become our enemy Miss Damien. You don’t want to know what happens to our enemies.”

“I’m not threatened by you or S.H.I.E.L.D.” Scarlett wasn’t lying in that respect. S.H.I.E.L.D. was just another company like MedCo and though she thought their moral compass was pointed in the correct direction she knew that just like MedCo they thought the ends justified the means. Right now, MedCo was the bigger threat since she was sure that there wasn’t even a direction for the compass to point for them now that they’d started reanimating corpses. Scarlett could only deal with one monster at a time and right now the monster was MedCo. S.H.I.E.L.D. could be dealt with after that if she had the chance.

Nick Fury had approached her at a moment of vulnerability, hoping that he could get her to join their side before she had gotten her wits about her. But doing so had further alienated her from the idea rather than gained her trust. He had hoped that she would see S.H.I.E.L.D. as a crutch to lean on and to help her through the challenges that would lie in front of her when she attempted to live her life with Tony. Instead he’d come off as hostile and had mirrored almost exactly what MedCo had done to her when they had pretended to hold Scott against her.

Fury already knew that there would be no convincing her at least not at this time and place. He’d have to try again in a different way at a later time.

“We are not trying to threaten you. We’re trying to help you.”

“I told you already, I’m not looking for the kind of help that you’re offering. Before I take any job I have my own demons to slay.” On top of dealing with MedCo Scarlett had ideas that she wanted to explore and expand upon. Scott had stolen many of her inventions and innovations and sold them off to private dealers underneath her nose. Scarlett needed to go about getting those things credited to her. Then there was, of course, the newer ideas she’d developed in the past weeks while on the run chasing after MedCo.

Scarlett had contributions to make to the world and she didn’t want those contributions going directly to S.H.I.E.L.D. She wanted to help people and Nick Fury hadn’t properly convinced her that was what he was doing with his Avengers Initiative.

“I can make this worth your while, Miss Damien. You wouldn’t have to fight MedCo alone anymore. Your history would be a non-issue. I could make it disappear. I could get you immunity from the attorney general for all crimes committed now and under our employment.”

“I already told you my answer. You could offer me my own country and I’d still tell you no.” Scarlett had made up her mind and while she wasn’t exactly sure she had made the right decision she couldn’t contemplate it any further. Maybe in another time and another place it wouldn’t seem like such a daunting thing to work for another company. But right now Scarlett needed to be, well, Scarlett.

Even that seemed impossible.

Scarlet felt like she would forever be the woman who was tortured in Afghanistan and then the woman who is being chased by her psychotic ex-boyfriend. Or maybe she’d become the woman who had broken Tony Stark’s heart.

That was a title she didn’t want.

It was becoming harder and harder to be the woman she wanted to be but mostly because she had no idea what she wanted to be. She knew what she didn’t want to be but that didn’t help narrow it down too far.

“We don’t give up so easily, Miss Damien. This isn’t the last you’ll hear about S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers. You could change the world if you wanted to. It’s all about the decisions you make.” Fury tilted his head, looking at her thoughtfully. It was almost a fatherly sort of kindness he was displaying but Scarlett wasn’t fooled by it. She guessed that this man was trained to read people and become what he thought they wanted to see. Right now, Scarlett wanted to be left alone.

“Good luck, Fury,” Scarlett said at last when she could think of nothing else to say. Nick Fury knew that it was the last thing he’d get out of her for now so he stood up and smoothed out his black trench coat.

“Don’t worry about the hospital bill. You’ve been paid for courtesy of S.H.I.E.L.D. Killing Mikhail and Erick did us a favor that we are more than happy to repay. There’s a check waiting for you if you contact Natasha before you leave. Just an example of what you could be making if you worked with us.”

Scarlett had nothing else to say to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent so when she didn’t respond he turned away and snuck like a crooked vulture in search of new prey out the door. She didn’t watch him leave, but she knew she’d see him again and she hoped it wasn’t in another hospital room or in a jail cell.
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I do not own Iron Man or the Marvel Universe, but I do own Scarlett Damien so please don't steal her!

Sorry I was visiting family last week and I was busy yesterday! SO DOUBLE UPDATE TODAY!