Deep breaths.

In and out...in and out...

Remember, nothing exists outside of you. You run and run and never stop. Just run. Run, run, run, run. Focus on the task before you. Silence, stillness, peace. Get into position. Brace yourself.

She stopped breathing momentarily, the split second before the whistle blew. Stillness settled down upon the track, all other noise vanished, and she was in her own little sphere.

TWEEE -

She took off running, feet slamming the floor in her wild dash. Stress dropped away and her speed increased to a blinding rate. Run. Run as though the monster is after you. Run as if -

Monster.

Her step faltered.

NO. Focus. Monsters chasing you. Just keep running, just keep running - the high quality security feed rushed into her mind - shove it out, keep running, faster faster - her step faltered again - monsters - Loki - the scepter - the scream -

FOCUS! Her step faltered and was lost.

Coach Rodriguez shook her head in disappointment as the runner ran across the start/finish line, breathing heavily, and considerably slower than she had been at the beginning of the relay. She took one glance at her stopwatch, gave a small sigh, clicked her pen on her clipboard, and scribbled down a time. One, two, three, four seconds slower.

"Good run girls. Head off to the showers. Remember, we got that meet on Saturday, so don't be late!" she called and all of the students sighed their relief and thanks, walking off, talking to each other about the latest celebrity gossip, the latest news on so and so's boyfriend and how that episode ended the night before.

"Stel, can i talk to you for a moment." The Stella stopped mid step to the door and sighed, waiting for her coach to say something or come up to her. "What's going on? Your times have dropped drastically." She sighed in annoyance and let her gym bag slide off her shoulder and crash to the floor. "You used to be the top runner in the school all three years of high school so far. and on your fourth, you crash and burn. You didn't even make varsity this year. That's a first." The girl made no move to respond and stood there, staring at the far wall behind her teacher, imitating eye contact. "Stel, I'm your coach and I'm your counsellor. There is nothing that you can't tell me and nothing that I can't help you about. What's going on?"

Stella finally made eye contact and a frightening display of a torrent of different emotions, so well mixed that the adult couldn't discern the individual ones.

"You wouldn't understand," she said finally, snatching up her gym bag and walking towards the locker room.

"Stella! Stella, don't count out the help of others that quickly!" her coach called. "It doesn't matter if you tell me now or later, i'll find out eventually, and it will be better for you. It's best to just get it off your chest!" Stella rolled her eyes and continued walking. "COULSON!"

"Good night coach," she retorted, slamming the door behind her. She hated the world. She hated life. She hated everything, she reflected as she changed back into her uniform of sweats for the cold weather. Then, she walked out and braved the hallways.

"Hey, Stella!" she heard a vaguely familiar voice call. "Where were you last week? You weren't at school!" She ignored the question and kept walking.

"Hey, you wanna come over for my eighteenth? No parents, no supervision - " She shoved past the other student, not even taking note of who it was. wasn't like it mattered: she didn't have any friends here. Not anymore. "Did you take his test?! it was so hard! - just was talking with - omg, what did he say?!" She filtered out the obscure chatter of her school mates, shoving through the crowds, mindless milling beasts, until she was out in the open, free of the oppressive closeness of the indoors.

"Hey, Stel," a more welcome voice called and she looked up to see the security guard walking by. "How's life?"

"Heimlich," she said, smiling. "It's been better." He nodded and smiled at her, walking on. he had always been kind to her in a way that no one else had. Almost as if he knew more about her than he let on.

She stopped abruptly, letting the cool wind brush over her, stinging her face with its sharp caresses. She bowed her head and quickly ran a hand through her cropped hair. Her dad had always loved her long hair...no, don't think about him. Don't. that's why you cut it all off to your shoulders, remember? To forget.

You're just scared. Her heart tightened at the voice that sneered at her. You're weak. That's why you couldn't handle him being gone and going on the way you always have.

Shut up, she thought, striking out at the small voice that nagged at the back of her mind. Shut up, just shut up.

Weak. Scared. You could never satisfy him as a daughter, and you know it. He was a great agent, and you, who are you? A star cross country runner, and a good student. What's that to a man who paid the ultimate sacrifice, laid down his life to save -

My dad loved me!

Weak. Sca -

"SHUT UP!" she shouted and people looked at her strangely. "God, shut up," she repeated softly, walking to her car, jerking the door open and throwing her gym bag into the far side of the vehicle, sitting heavily in the driver's seat. She grabbed the door and slammed it shut, relishing the hard, loud bang it made. And then, when she was sure that there was no one around, she folded her arms over the top of the steering wheel and began to cry, tears leaving tracks down her face and sobs wracking her body. She reached down and pulled her phone out of her back pack, turned it on and made her way to the voicemail folder, clicking on one from a week and a half ago.

"Hey sweetie, it's me, dad." She closed her eyes and tried not to lose complete control. "I'm just calling to tell you something: I met him. I met the Captain America, and you were absolutely right: I made myself look like a complete idiot." Coulson laughed and through her tears Stella began laughing to. "I told him that i watched him while he slept, i mean, how much creepier can you sound?" He laughed again in embarrassed amusement and Stella bit her lip, trying not to go into borderline hysteria. "Oh well, i can always try again. I'm calling you from the helicarrier, we got all the avengers on board, and let me tell you that in and of itself is looking to be an adventure..." Then, his tone grew serious.

"I'm just calling you because i've got a bad sort of feeling. I would call mom, but we both know that she would just freak out, and we can't have that, not so close to Christmas, can we? She's already wound up tight enough as it is. Anyways, I've got this gut feeling...We have Loki on board and he's up to something. Something bad. And i can't help but feel that - well, I'm just saying that if the worst happens - " he stopped speaking. "Ah, don't listen to me. I'm just being a paranoid old man. I'll be back after this, Fury's granted me an advance time off when this mess had blown over. Don't tell mom, though, i want it to be a surprise. I just want you to know that i love you so much Stella. Don't you ever change. You are my perfect little angel and I'll always love you. Just remember that. And nothing will keep me away from you and mom for long." He paused. "Just keep telling yourself that." He sighed and she could almost see and could most definitely feel the smile that she knew had been on her dad's face when this phone call had been made. "I know you'll be top runner in school again. And i wish i could make it to your first race, but i think that this might go on a lot longer than that. I'll do my best to be there, but, you know, do your duty to queen and country, eh? Be safe, be strong, and remember that you are my daughter. Crap, okay, Fury's coming i got to go. Take care sweet heart, i love you! See you soon!" The phone beeped and Stella took several deep breaths, finger hovering over the number 7.

"To repeat the message, press 1. To delete the message, press 7. To call back, press - " She bit her lip and pressed down. "Message erased."

"I'm sorry daddy," she whispered sadly, putting her phone in her backpack and twisting the key in the ignition. "I'm sorry." Outside, two men watched from the shadows as she pulled out of her parking spot and the black car began moving towards the street. The taller of the two pulled out a walkie talkie and said lowly,

"10-5 Schmidt. Polaris under surveillance, shadows lengthening."

"10-4. Over and out." The man turned off his transceiver and smirked at his companion, making sure his hat was pulled low over his face.

"Let's see what would happen if we followed this little angel? I'd hate for a good investment to be wasted in a boring conundrum of life, wouldn't you agree?"

"That's a good idea, Nyx," the shorter one said obediently, nodding his head and wringing his hands like a humble servant.

"Excuse me," came a sudden voice and they turned around to see a school security guard walking up to them. "Sirs, may i ask what you're doing on school property?" Nyx angled his head up and allowed the barest amount of light to touch his features. Overall he painted a very menacing image, long black trench coat and black clothing underneath. A putrid smell seemed to just radiate off of him.

"Son, you may want to walk away right now," he growled and the young man stopped, unnerved by what he saw under the brim of the hat.

"Look, you may have a messed up face, but you aren't scaring me. You need to leave," he said, admirably confident.

"Oh well, Vaul. We did our best, we should be going now," the obvious leader, Nyx, said condescendingly. "Although it would be a shame not to commend this gentleman for his bravery..." Vaul, his smaller, skulking companion giving a pure evil smile up at his master. "I thought you would agree."

"What are you - " the security guard began, raising his arm to defend himself but with a deft, quick move, and a sickening crack, the man fell to the floor, neck broken, eyes sightless. Nyx sighed.

"The first kill is always a good feeling, wouldn't you agree?"

~'*'~

Stella tapped her fingers along with the music playing from her radio, humming along to Pachelbel's Canon in D. It was a rather long drive from school to her backwoods home and the snow was making her nervous. Visibility was always a problem when storms like this began blowing in. She looked down at her phone as it began buzzing and sighed as she saw it was her mom. Reaching over without looking, she picked it up and held it up to her ear.

"hey mom."

"Stella, where are you? You're usually home by now, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong mom, i just was a little delayed in getting out of school, practice ran a bit late, and the visibility's getting a little difficult out here."

"I know, right? The weather man says we're supposed to get a small blizzard today. Drive safe sweet heart, where are you?"

"I'm just passing Old May's house. I"ll be home in about five minutes."

"Okay, sweet heart. I'll have some hot chocolate waiting for you," she heard her mom say before her line crackled and went dead. That was strange...she thought to herself as she looked down at her phone. At that moment, some poor soul stumbled out into the street in front of her and, with a cry of fear and panic, she slammed the breaks and threw the wheel to the side, skidding around the person who fell to his knees in cowering fear and probably shock. She sat there, panting and grabbed her phone, getting out of the car and running through the snow, wrapping her scarf tighter around herself in the sharp cold.

"Oh my god, i am so sorry!" she cried, picking up the stranger's fallen hat and running over to him. "Are you okay?" The tall man sat there, bent over himself as though he were praying, trembling in either the cold or fear, she couldn't tell which. "Sir, are you alright, did i hurt you?" she asked again, putting a hand on his shoulder. Then, with speed too quick for her to react to, the man's head snapped up and his hand snaked around to grab her wrist and twist her arm behind her back, slamming her face first into the snow. As she kicked and screamed, flailing her legs and arms trying to break loose, the man leaned down so that she could see his face and she froze.

His face was a mess of scars to the point where it was almost unrecognizable as a human.

"You will do as i say. Or you'll end up like that young man Heimlich you were talking to: snapped neck," he snarled and she stopped struggling, lying there, terrified. "Good." he yanked her to her feet and immediately a calloused smelly hand was clammed over her mouth and nose effectively cutting off her air supply and any means of screaming for help. At the loss of air, she involuntarily kicked and he bent her head back. "Now, don't struggle with me." She stopped and looked at the sky in a silent plea for help. She was dragged off into the side of the road, and forced into the back of a truck where several other men were waiting.

"Nice pick, Nyx," one of them laughed. "She'll fetch you a high price in the markets." Her blood ran cold as the door slammed shut and the vehicle roared to life. Traffickers. She had been hearing about what they had been doing, their activity spiking over the past few months. She took stock of her surroundings. All of them had knives, no guns that she could see. They were in a mini van with tinted windows and there were a total of five people in the car with her, driver included. She took a deep breath and looked at her hands in her lap.

Be safe, be strong, and remember that you are my daughter. She was Phil Coulson's daughter. What was she doing here, sitting calmly? She looked up and made her decision. Just as she stood up however, the whole van spun out throwing almost everyone to the ground.

An outside watcher would have simply seen a van full of screaming adults and a driver who was rather skilled at keeping control of a car in snow with his passengers going insane. However, a closer examination would show two arrows in the back tires with small explosives as the arrow heads, the red lights flashing just beneath the rubber. And on the inside, a whole different scenario was unfolding.

Stella was learning that she was actually very good at keeping her balance as she was fighting in a moving car and she was very thankful for that. Her captors however weren't as skill and their clumsy strikes with their switchblades easy to avoid, sending them crashing into the walls of the car and finally, into each other as the she realized that they were easy to push as well. She grabbed cups, crowbars, anything, and struck at them, delivering hard, quick blows. Nyx, the one who had taken her, however was simply sitting there, watching her bemusedly.

"Do you really think that you're getting out of this, girl?" he asked, suddenly standing upright and grabbing her arms, holding her immobile. "You are going no where and you just got yourself a whole lot of punishment. I'll make sure your owner knows about it and you can payoff your punishment to him." The men around them moaned and rolled on the floor of the car and she snarled, bringing her foot crashing back into his knee cap and twisting her body violently, throwing him to the ground. At the same time, the back of the car was practically torn open and a man with a bow jumped into the back of the van, pulling an arrow and aiming it at Nyx's head.

"Nyx, I hereby order you to stand down," he said loudly. "And hand the girl over, she isn't yours."

"She isn't yours either!" he shouted belligerently, hand still firmly latched on her ankle.

"She's nobody's. Nobody's except her mother and father's, you hear me? So hand her over or you're getting an arrow between the eyes!" Nyx released her foot and she staggered forward, finally seeing her rescuer's face in the car's half light and froze in incredulity. "Nyx, by order of S.H.I.E.L.D., i am authorized to retrieve your most recent victim if any, and neutralize." With that, he grabbed Stella by the arm and leaped out of the back of the car, crashing and rolling through the snow as the van exploded in a violent inferno from another four explosive arrows that had been shot there while they had been driving without the gang noticing.

"Well, that's one more unpleasant group taken care of," Clint said wryly, standing and brushing himself off. "You okay, miss?" he asked, holding a hand down to her. "I was watching you in there, you did pretty well. Have you ever taken karate or something like that?" he asked, interested. "You fight like one of my old coworkers did: using what he had around him." She took his rough hand and stood up, looking at him in surprised disbelief in the headlights of the approaching S.H.I.E.L.D. car.

"B - Barton?" she whispered. "Are - are you Agent Clint Barton?" Barton's eyes narrowed and then widened as he dragged her farther into the light. "You are," she breathed. "You ar - it is you." She'd only seen him at the funeral and from her dad's pictures, but she knew him none the less.

"Stella Coulson?" he asked in disbelief and was tackled by a hysterical, emotionally drained teenager who practically began sobbing into his uniform, clinging to him like he was the last living thing on that road.

"We found their victims' car a while back," came another voice, a woman's, and Natasha Romanoff came walking out of the government car, stopping as she saw Barton holding a girl close to him. "We're...tracing the owner...what's going on here?" Barton looked over his shoulder at her still in disbelief.

"It's Phil's daughter," he said in a hoarse voice. "They took her." Romanoff walked over and shone a flash light in the girl's face, expression sympathetic and grim.

"You're going to be okay now," she said softly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "We've got you. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s got you. We're going to get you home." Stella nodded and stepped away from Barton, allowing them to lead her back down the road for a few minutes to her car. "We'll drive you back. We're all clear here," she said to her microphone in her ear and unseen by them, the car drove off to meet them at the Coulson homestead. "You'll be okay, Stella. You're safe." All the teenager could do was nod numbly. For that was all she felt.

Numb.