He could not screw this up. This was the biggest break he had gotten since he had gotten accepted- heck, maybe of his entire life. This was his opportunity, and he was not going to let anything mess it up.

Especially not that teenybopper sleeping in the corner with the "celebrity boy band" haircut. Colin, Drew, whatever his name was (Matt highly doubted it was actually Colin Richards) had assured him over and over again that his loyalties were with ZoneTech and HYDRA, but Matt was still keeping an eye on him. He had heard the stories where the agent pretending to be "in love" (or in their case, boyfriend and girlfriend for about three months) becomes real and turns into a traitor. That was a factor that Matt could not have messing up his plan. So the boy stayed in his sight, slumped against the wall to sleep.

Matt turned back to the computer, scrolling through the memories that finished importing. It was an amazing piece of technology, he had to admit. Luckily Bree had started so much of it before she, ahem, "left" or they wouldn't have been able to finish in such a short amount of time. The guys that worked on it even made a manual, which he had read with a chuckle. Colin had taken one look and tossed it aside, asking Matt to just summarize. Essentially, he had said, it transports your memories onto a hard drive. Colin's face had turned to an expression of disgust so Matt quickly explained further.

"Think of a camera cartridge. The pictures and videos you take are on that cartridge, right?"

Colin nodded slowly. "Yeah. So?" Matt resisted the urge to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose.

"So, you can take out that cartridge and put it on a computer, where the photos are downloaded and saved. You following?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah, I think so. It makes the brain like the cartridge?"

Matt couldn't resist the urge to roll his eyes this time. How did he even end up on this mission?

"Exactly. We take the 'photos' and 'videos', which are the memories, and add these IVs and these patches onto the person, and it starts downloading the memories onto this computer here." Matt patted the computer and Colin nodded along.

"Cool."

Matt was going to petition to get the boy off his team once they got to Step Four. Honestly, Colin would be better off as an analyst, maybe a tech, but he was in the wrong position here. Matt was getting sick of him questioning every little decision.

"Hey," Matt said, nudging Colin's shoe. Colin looked startled for a second before shaking his head and glaring up at Matt.

"What?" he grumped, standing and leaning against the wall. Matt gave him a look and he scowled back.

"No sleeping on the job," Matt reprimanded. Colin rolled his eyes but pushed off from the wall, going over to the computer that had finished downloading. They worked in silence for a bit before Matt's curiosity got the better of him. "Is Colin your real name? Or is it Drew?"

The younger boy didn't take his eyes off the computer while he shrugged. "Colin Richards is my real name. They didn't feel the need for me to change it while undercover since nothing could be traced back." Matt nodded along, filing that away for later use. The more he knew, the more he could use.

"Matt." He knew that voice. It always made his hands tremor with anxiety. Justin Walters stuck his head into the room. Instantly, everything changed. Both Colin and himself stood straighter, everything was much more important somehow.

"Yes, sir?" Justin Walters looked to where Bree was strapped to the machine she had created.

"It's time." A thrill of nervousness shot up Matt's spine and he raised his eyebrows. Was this what he had been waiting for?

"Time for what, sir?"

"It's been officially twenty-four hours with no sign of opposition. We're proceeding to Step Four. Colin, come talk to me out in the hall for a moment."

It was time.

There was an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach when they removed the patches with wires from her skin. It was...weird. The feeling remained when they switched out one of the solution bags in her IV and replaced it with a light blue liquid.

Matt knelt down so he was face to face with her. "This will hurt a little bit, okay?" No, no, not okay. "The liquid stings when it enters your system, but after a few minutes it will stop." She winced when it first entered and immediately the room started spinning. Bree closed her eyes in temporary relief before the darkness started spinning too. Why was he suddenly being nice? Her thoughts felt like hummingbirds, fluttering off in a million directions before she could hold onto one. An eternity passed while Matt and Colin made idle talk, all the while staring at the computer screen. What were they doing? A machine on her left started beeping as her eyes started to droop. She struggled to keep them open as Matt muttered curses under his breath.

"I'll go get the solution and the...other thing. You keep her awake." There was some rustling before he spoke again. "I'll be right back." Colin's footsteps clattered across the marble floor as he crossed over to her.

"Quickly," he said, untying the straps on her wrist. She groggily looked at it, vision swirling. Were there really three straps?

"What're you doing?" she managed out, which probably sounded way more slurred than she meant for it to be. Whatever the blue liquid had been, it was strong. Colin took out the IV that was connected to it and untied her other wrist.

"Can you stand?" he asked, eying the straps on her feet.

She nodded, then shrugged. "Think so." He gave her a dubious glance before leaning down and untying them as well. SHe repeated her question. "What're you doing?"

Colin looked up briefly before focusing on the straps again. "Trying to get you out of here." Bree blinked. Hadn't he been the one to take her in? To fool her from the beginning? It was slightly easier to think now that the liquid was disconnected but everything was still sluggish.

"Why?"

He paused before shaking his head, saying, "There's not much time to explain." She put her foot down tentatively once the strap was off and nearly collapsed before he caught her. "Alright, we're doing this the hard way then," he said. He wrapped his arm under hers and she could kinda walk from there.

'Why?" she repeated. This didn't make sense. Colin stuck his head out the door and around the corner before dragging themselves out and around.

"Look. I don't agree with what's going on here," he said as Bree stumbled. Where were they going? "I signed up for something much smaller than this. I had no clue it would blow up into this whole mess. This," he said, gesturing wildly with his free hand, "this wasn't supposed to happen. It's too much."

None of that made sense. If he disagreed with everything, why was he so cruel on the train? There were more questions than answers. Something startled him in the next hall because he roughly opened a door and shoved her in before following after, closing the door behind them and locking it. A stairwell, with white concrete glaring down at her and closing in.

"Come on, let's go," Colin urged, trying to pick up the pace. "You need to get out of here. They authorized Step Four for your project file." Bree looked at him tiredly, too worn to ask for an explanation. They went down several long flights of stairs before Colin finally motioned to stop in front of a door labeled WE-7. "Here," he said, holding up an ID card. "Your weapons are in here. The polearms, right? I need you to go in and grab those. As soon as I swipe the card to gain access, they'll know where we are. By this point, I'm guessing they know I'm helping you. Go as fast as you can, okay? I'm going to try and throw them off by swiping in a level above to slow them down."

Bree nodded- it seemed simple enough. Go in, grab her rods, and get out. "Where am I going after that?"

Colin paused, before answering, "Right. Once you've got them, come back out to this stairwell, go down three more floors before going into the door marked EA-10. It's a hallway to an elevator, okay? Click the button marked 'G'. I'll meet you there." Before she could respond, he swiped the card. The machine on the door flashed green and swung open.

And he was gone.

(A/N: Past-me really got hung up on OCs, huh? Anywho, saw Endgame, promise there'll be no spoilers cause that would just be mean. Let's all say yikes about the writing style on the count of three (apparently past-me didn't know that you didn't have to start each line with speech). One, two, three...YIKES)