The Shield and the Rose || S. Rogers

Rose and Thorn

For the first time in her life that she could remember, Katherine didn't feel the weight of others watching and monitoring upon her shoulders. She could breathe, even if it was just for a singular moment.

She had let another week pass before she looked at her supplies and equipment in the spare room of her apartment. Every day, she and Steve would meet around lunch and either have their lunch on that same little patio that they always had or would take it to the Tower. Every evening that week, she had been invited to spend the time with the Avengers in the Tower. To her relief, no one had noticed as she made observations of the different levels of the building.

Looking to a small crate in the corner of the room, Katherine took her nano mask in her hand. Her father had given it to her just before Steve had discovered Hydra's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the day that everything had seemingly blown up in their faces. Frowning, she sighed at it.

Walking over to the chair she had next to a small table, just large enough to hold supplies and to use as a work bench, she sat the mask on the surface of the table and sat down in the chair. Turning on a lamp that she had sitting beside it, she sat back and stared at the mask.

She remembered the day that her father had given her the mask very well. He had given her a warning that Steve had escaped from Rumlow and the others and taken off. She hadn't said much in return, she just knew that she felt a sense of agitation at the others for not allowing her to help with taking down Steve. She had been convinced that she could be the one to stop him.

Now, looking back, she realized that it was rather foolish to believe that she could magically be the one to take him down that day. As she had grown up, she remembered being taught of how Steve had been a danger to their organization and when he was brought out from the ice, that he needed to be stopped. Katherine had always had her own feelings about what she witnessed, but she remembered trying to at least believe that one statement about him. All it took was that moment when he had unknowingly saved her life from her own people and hearing his thoughts that changed her perspective. He wasn't a danger, he was a man that wanted to protect people. She couldn't find any faults in that.

As she knew him now, Katherine felt a pause to going through with her plan that day. She'd take the mask and disguise herself as one of the employees she had seen earlier that day. She wasn't shy from the fact that those employees that she had seen each day were agents, a perfect persona for another agent to pretend to be.

Reaching into her pocket, Katherine pulled out a security badge. She had swiped it off of an agent's bag as they had been leaving at the same time that she had after lunch one afternoon a few days prior. Taking a look between the badge and her mask, she let out a low and deep breath before standing from the chair.

Walking from the spare room and to her bedroom to change, Katherine settled with the fact that she was about to begin a process that she could never go back from. It was time to finally start passing along pieces of information, even if all she could do is describe the lab to her sister. Straightening out her appearance before walking to the spare room and putting on the mask, Katherine left her apartment, praying to whatever may have been out there that she wasn't caught.

Katherine found that she cared about the man that she now called her boyfriend, but her sister was right. She couldn't get too attached and it was about time that she proved that she wasn't.

*＊✿❀○❀✿＊*

Katherine and Victoria's mother had passed away when they were incredibly young. Neither woman truly remembered her, but their father had never shied away from informing them of how she was a strong agent as well.