#chapter 10

And that's a good question! I think a combined effort of multiple Shepherds could be enough to take him down: for example, a team of Halek + Chase + Briony, or Blade + Chase + Briony/Halek/Trouble, etc., could have managed it. Singly, only Blade and Halek have canonically bested Croelle on their own in the novels (though neither were able to kill him), but the game scenario is very different: Croelle already has a massive advantage due to the ambush and feeding on all of that destruction and chaos, plus the general turmoil and disorientation of what's going on, and having to worry about not just straight up killing other people. The Shepherds would have to worry about causing massive collateral damage, whereas Croelle doesn't give an f about anyone else around him, including his own allies, lol, so he's already got a large upper hand. Any non-MC who attempted it would have to take him out immediately, because any protracted conflict would actually cause him to grow stronger as more time went on. But they could have managed it through a combined effort if they'd been there!

In a vacuum, totally neutral battlefield, circumstances, and environment, it'd be a different story. I think someone like Blade or even Halek could have taken Croelle in calmer circumstances, or again, any combination of the others (Red and Riel strategizing from afar while Halek and Blade worked together, for example, or Briony and Chase), but in this specific situation, it would have been a lot tougher due to the circumstances! (Actually, Briony would actually be one of the worst people to go up against him because she's not precise and tends to cause a lot of destruction on her own, which would have fueled his powers, but being directed by someone else who realized that could have helped!)

Sam stood near the window, arms crossed so tight it looked like he was holding himself together. Clint paced. Wanda sat with her elbows on her knees, hands pressed together under her chin. Bucky hadn’t said anything since coming back upstairs. He stood in the corner like a shadow. His mind racing with the woman who he had let into his life so easily, who has now confirmed his recent suspicions.

Tony leaned forward over the table. “This isn’t just a leak. It’s an inside job.”

“She’s still here,” Bruce said quietly. “Never left compound range. She was in the kitchen, admin wing, at one point she was in the library.”

“Because she’s not running,” Natasha finally spoke. “She doesn’t have to.”

Steve frowned. “We don’t have proof it was her.”

Sam let out a sharp breath. “We don’t have proof it wasn’t.”

“She’s helped us for years,” Wanda said softly. “You know that. She’s not… she’s not some enemy plant.”

“Are you sure?” Bucky asked. Not cruel. Not angry. Just… tired. “Because I’ve been in those roles. Done what she might’ve done. And nothing hides guilt better than familiarity.”

“She saved my life during the Jakarta op,” Clint said. “Broke protocol to do it. That wasn’t for show.”

“Or it was the perfect show,” Tony muttered, rubbing his temples. “God, we always give the benefit of the doubt to the ones who smile the most.”

“She didn’t just smile,” Bruce added. “She was kind.”

“Kind doesn’t mean clean,” Natasha said.

Steve held up a hand. “Okay. Enough. We investigate properly. No assumptions. Full audit.”

“She was cleared when she came in,” Sam said.

Tony looked up. “Yeah, but who cleared her?”

No one answered.

Natasha already had her tablet out. “I’ll pull her recruitment files.”

“And I’ll start backtracking movement logs,” Bruce added. “She might’ve used ghost codes. Might’ve had help.”

“And the other problem?” Clint asked. “The one still sitting in our holding room?”

They all went quiet.

You hadn’t moved since the alarm. Hadn’t reacted when the red lights flashed in the vents. Just sat there, the same way you had the day they brought you in.

Like none of it mattered anymore.

You knew something was wrong the second the air changed.

It wasn’t loud. There were no blasts, no running footsteps, no smoke. Just a shift. A stillness. And then the red lights began to blink in the hallway, casting slow pulsing shadows against the cold walls of your cell.

An alarm. An evacuation, maybe. A breach.

You didn’t move. Didn’t stand. Didn’t press against the glass to see who was coming. You already knew no one was.

Eventually, you heard voices that were muffled through layers of concrete and soundproofing. Rushed, angry, and familiar. The Avengers. Probably cursing at security feeds and trying to figure out what happened.

But the door to your cell stayed shut.

You remained on the cot, knees drawn up to your chest, fingers curled tight into the fabric of your sleeves. Your heart didn’t race. Your breathing didn’t spike.

Because this?

This was expected. Not the break-in. Not the escape.

Being forgotten.

That part wasn’t new.

You weren’t surprised when the people who called themselves your allies had left you behind weeks ago. And you weren’t surprised now that the ones who’d promised you freedom and recognition had done the same.

You were useful until you weren’t. Valuable until the real pieces needed moving.

They took the scientists. The tacticians. The charismatic ex-leaders and the secret-keepers. But not you. Never you.

Still, something small and pathetic inside you had hoped, in that flicker between silence and sirens, that someone would open the door. Even if it wasn’t to let you go. Even if it was just to say we didn’t forget you.

But no. It seemed both sides were incapable of such a thing.

You leaned your head against the wall, cheek pressed to the cool cement. The red light blinked across your face again. Then again. Like a metronome marking time you didn’t ask to sit through.

How ironic, you thought.

You’d been the one person caught between both worlds. The ghost in the hallway. The one who never quite fit in at the tower. And supposedly never quite belonged at the organization either.

You weren’t trusted enough to be freed. You weren’t important enough to be taken. You were just… there.

Something to clean up later. A problem for another day.

Your eyes stung, but you didn’t cry. You’d wasted those tears before. Back when you still thought loyalty meant something. When you still believed if you worked hard enough, if you were good enough, someone might look at you the way they looked at her. With warmth. With ease. With interest.

But they never did.

Not Bucky. Not Steve. Not Natasha. Not anyone.

And now?

Now, they had to decide what to do with you. Not help you. Not understand you. Just… assess you. Like a threat.

You curled tighter into yourself, resting your forehead on your knees. At some point, the alarm went silent.

But it didn’t matter. Because you weren’t escaping. You weren’t going anywhere. You were just one more locked door no one bothered to open.

The table was scattered with files from the breach. Footage frozen mid-frame. Timelines drafted and crossed out. A whiteboard bore questions no one had been able to answer hours earlier.

Until now.

Natasha entered first, tablet in hand, with her movements clipped and deliberate. Bruce followed, paler than usual, carrying the weight of what he’d helped uncover.

Steve looked up immediately. “Tell me you have something.”

Natasha didn’t sit. “We do. But you’re not going to like it.”

That made the room go quiet. Wanda leaned forward. Clint folded his arms. Sam stilled his bouncing knee, Tony turned away from the monitor, gaze narrowing.

Natasha tapped her tablet, and a profile hovered into the air.

Her profile. The one you had always envied. The one who could make Bucky smile in the way you couldn’t. There she was, her picture smiling and official.

“This isn’t her original clearance file.”

Tony frowned. “What do you mean?”

Bruce stepped in. “What we’ve all been looking at, the file we’ve used for years, it’s patched. Rewritten. Spliced with data from at least three separate sources. Her full psych eval? Missing. Background check? Incomplete. And the worst part? The approval logs are gone.”

“Gone?” Sam repeated.

“Wiped,” Natasha confirmed. “Not sloppy, either. Whoever did it knew exactly how to make it look like standard intake.”

Clint’s brows drew together. “But she’s been here for years. No red flags?”

“She never accessed anything she wasn’t given access to,” Bruce said. “No poking around in classified servers, no bypassing clearance. Everything she knew, we gave her.”

“She earned it,” Wanda said softly, but the words sounded uncertain now.

“Or we thought she did,” Natasha corrected.

Steve stared at the screen. “So… she walked in the front door with someone’s permission. But no one knows whose.”

“Someone scrubbed the trail,” Bruce said. “And unless we dig deep into archived logs, we’re not finding it anytime soon.”

The silence settled heavy after his last words.

The woman’s profile still hovered midair. Bright, clean, professional like it had nothing to hide. Like she belonged.

Wanda was the first to speak, barely above a whisper. “I used to tell her things. Not missions or codes, just… things… about my past. My fears. I thought she understood.”

“She did,” Tony said, voice flat. “That was the point.”

Wanda flinched, just slightly.

Bruce looked down at the terminal. “She remembered names, asked about our families, brought coffee when someone was exhausted. She wasn’t invisible, she blended in.”

Steve exhaled slowly, like the weight of it was finally hitting. “We let someone embed herself this deep… and we ignored the signs.”

“There were no signs,” Tony snapped, suddenly frustrated. “That’s the damn problem. She played it safe–played us safe. No hacking, no sneaking around, just friendship.”

“Manufactured friendship,” Bruce added quietly.

Wanda swallowed hard. “I thought she was my friend.”

Sam leaned forward, looking across the table at Steve. “So what now? We keep watching her and pretend none of this happened?”

“No,” Steve said. “We find out who she really is and what she wants.”

“And if she already got what she came for?” Bucky asked, finally pushing off the wall. His voice was low, tight, raw at the edges. “What if we’re just… leftovers?”

“She was close with you,” Natasha said carefully.

“I thought so,” Bucky answered, but his voice was distant now. “But I think I was just another door to walk through.”

No one knew what to say to that. The woman hadn’t stolen secrets or set off bombs.

But she’d done something worse, she’d made them trust her.

Meanwhile, time passed.

You didn’t ask how much. You didn’t care. No one had spoken to you. No one had come anyways.

The lights had returned to normal, the sirens cut off, and what remained was silence. Not even a damn explanation. You were just… here. As always. Present, but invisible.

You laid back on the cot eventually, staring at the ceiling. You found cracks in the cement. Water damage in the corner. A flickering bulb that buzzed faintly, like a whisper in the back of your skull.

Your limbs ached from how still you’d been, but you didn’t move. You didn’t see the point.

What would it change?

What was left to be gained by trying?

You’d done everything right once. Quietly filled in where others fumbled. Took notes no one asked for. Cleaned up messes without credit. Stayed late. Showed up early. Bit your tongue when they overlooked you. Smiled politely when you were excluded.

You’d never been chosen in any room or in any war. But you’d stayed anyway. Waited, hoping one day they might turn and see you standing there and realize what they had. What you could be.

But they hadn’t. Not until it was all too late.

And when the world fell sideways and you were dragged into something darker, you’d believed for one stupid moment, that maybe they would want you. The people in the shadows. The ones who said you were smarter than the rest. That you were necessary, sharper, wanted.

And you were, for a while. But that was the thing about being useful. It didn’t mean you were valued. It just meant you were used.

You rolled onto your side.

They had left you behind. Not by mistake. Not by oversight. Deliberately.

And maybe that was worse than being hated. At least hatred meant you mattered enough to be a problem.

This?

This was nothing.

You heard footsteps echoing down the hall at some point. Someone doing a sweep. A brief glance through the glass, but there wasn’t a pause or comment. The steps continued on as your throat tightened.

But you didn’t cry. You still wouldn’t give them that. Instead, you laid still with your back to the door.

You weren’t sure who you were anymore. You weren’t their administrator or analyst. Not anyone’s asset. Not even the villain they were trying to convince themselves you might be.

You were… what? A loose end? Maybe.

Or maybe you were just the reminder of everything they didn’t want to see: How easy it is to lose someone who was never really seen to begin with.