PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS STORY IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 YEARS OLD.
[based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe]
This is the story of Forsaken, a skilled and trained assassin who works for Hydra until she is rescued by Shield. She tries to find her old memori...
Agent Coulson escorted both Alice and Steve to Helicarrier, where they were supposed to meet Fury, Natasha, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, and other Shield agents. As soon as Alice stepped out of the Quinjet and spotted Natasha Romanoff just a few feet, she ran into the spy's arms. There was an unspoken bond between them – a somewhat similar past of darkness and redemption.
"Natasha! I missed you so much; it feels like I haven't seen you in years!" Alice exclaimed, enveloping her friend in a tight hug.
"Hum, Alice, I miss you too, but you're forgetting you have super strength." Natasha chuckled, and Alice released her, visibly apologetic. Sometimes her powers proved to be a curse.
"You didn't hurt me. Don't worry about it, okay?" Natasha reassured her, gripping Alice's hand and intertwining it with hers. "Come on, let's get inside. It's about to get hard to breath out here."
As Natasha finished speaking, the Helicarrier started preparing to take flight. Alice and Steve looked at its wings and motors emerging from the water, ready to ascend.
"Hi Maria, it's nice to see you," Alice waved as soon as she saw Fury's right arm at Shield. She and Agent Hill were good friends, with Maria often visiting to check on her. Initially, it was part of her job as an agent, but soon Agent Hill started to become friends with the ex-assassin. Maria would often baby her, introducing her to sweets and food she had never tried before, like pizza and hamburgers.
"Hey Onyx. Ready to see something really cool?" Alice shook her head, and Maria pointed outside through the large glass windows. The Helicarrier had now become invisible, seamlessly blending with the sky.
"Wow," Alice was in awe. Never in her life had she imagined seeing something like this.
Fury turned away from his panels, "Gentleman, Onyx," he said while looking Steve, Bruce, and Alice.
Alice and Steve looked around the Helicarrier's control room, fascinated by the technology they had never encountered before. As Alice moved among the Shield employees, she noticed one of them shivering in her presence. She was used to this by now – people being afraid of her. Even at the compound where she stayed, some of the doctors and nurses tiptoed around her, fearing what she could do, despite no longer being Forsaken.
"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet," Agent Coulson announced, "Cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."
"That's still not gonna find them in time," Natasha added as she squatted next to a computer displaying Agent Barton's picture. Alice knew they were close. A few weeks before, Natasha had told her about how Clint had spared her life before she joined Shield. Although Alice had never met Barton, she felt a connection and trust knowing he was a friend of Natasha's.
"You have to narrow your field," everyone turned to Bruce, the smartest person in the room. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
"How many are there?" Fury crossed his arms.
Bruce turned to Coulson. "Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places," the doctor turned to Fury again, "Do you have somewhere for me to work?"
"Agent Romanoff," the director called one of his best agents, "could you show Doctor Banner to his laboratory, please?" Natasha smiled at Alice before walking towards Bruce, "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."
Alice got closer to her friend Steve and whispered on his ear, "I literally understood zero of what Doctor Banner just said."
Steve laughed, "That makes two of us, kiddo."
"Hey, Alice, do you want a tour of the place?" Agent Hill joined them, and Alice gladly accepted her offer. It would be nice to catch up with her friend.
As Hill showed her the inside of the Helicarrier, Alice pondered how to tell her about the man who had been a soldier with her during her Forsaken days. She believed Maria could help her look for him.
"Hum, Maria, can I ask you a favour?" Alice finally found the courage she needed just as they walked back the corridor which would lead them to the control room where they were before.
"Sure, Onyx, anything you need," she smiled. Hill wasn't typically a very smiley woman, but she was different with Alice, making an effort to help her feel welcome.
"Over a month ago, on my birthday, I remembered something about when I was Forsaken... I-I remembered a man, another soldier like me. He-he didn't want to be an assassin, Maria. They were forcing him, just like they did to me. But he didn't have Steve to rescue him and... I was wondering if you could help me find him?" Alice hesitated, asking such a favour from Maria, who had only known her for a couple of months. But she felt Maria was the right person to help her locate the unidentified soldier. "I don't remember his name or anything, but... I thought you would be the best person to help me..."
"I'm sorry Alice, but if you don't remember anything besides his existence, it will not be easy to find your friend," Maria sympathetically responded. She didn't fully understand what Alice was feeling, but she knew it was hard, especially after everything she went through. "Hey, don't be sad." Maria awkwardly patted Alice's shoulder, "I know it's hard. Look, I'll ask around about someone with powers like yours. Maybe we'll get a lead. How does that sound?"
"Thank you so much, Maria..." Alice wanted to hug her, but her body didn't allow it. She wasn't ready for that level of affection with another person. The only people she was comfortable with almost everything were Steve and Natasha, no one else. Two people were already difficult enough for her.
"We got a hit, a 67% match," one of the agents announced as they re-entered the control room. "Wait. Cross match, 79%."
"Location?" Coulson inquired.
"Stuttgart, Germany. 28 Königstrasse," the agent with glasses answered, "He's not exactly hiding."
Alice studied the image of the so-called god for the first time. She couldn't deny it; Loki was a very handsome man, perhaps even more handsome than his brother Thor. She had never met Thor, but she had seen videos circulating the internet when he fought a huge metal man. Her past a tool of Hydra made appreciating beauty a challenge. Trained to view people as targets, Alice struggled to find joy in the world. She knew that rediscovering beauty was a journey to reclaim her humanity.
"Captain, Onyx, you're up," Nick Fury informed the two ex-soldiers. "Take care of her, Cap." He whispered into Steve's ear.
Onyx retreated to her room to change from her regular clothes into her new uniform. It wasn't exactly a uniform, just all-black attire with guns and knives distributed all over her body. The clothes resembled her old Forsaken uniform, but she didn't mind. She knew she was no longer that person, regardless of the clothes she wore.
Alice and Steve joined Natasha in the Quinjet. The trip to Germany should be quick, bringing a sense of relief to Alice, who wasn't used to such technologies and wasn't particularly fond of flying.
"He's down there," Natasha pointed to a man with a green and gold outfit, standing before a crowd of people who were kneeling, except for an old man.
"I'm going in," Alice opened the Quinjet's door and jumped.
"Did she grab a parachute?" Natasha asked Steve in shock.
