The Shield and the Rose || S. Rogers

Thanksgiving

Katherine had returned home to Kurt in a panic. He had quickly taken note of her expression, quickly standing from where he had been watching television on the couch. Walking up to her, he placed his hands on her shoulders and looked at her in worry.

"Kate, what's wrong?" he tried to search her face.

"They know," she panicked.

"Who knows? What do they know?" he asked.

"The Avengers. They know I've been snooping," she panicked.

"They know you're Hydra?" his jaw dropped.

"Well, no, they just know that someone from Hydra has been snooping through the offices. They heard our conversation over the video recordings. Steve is convinced it's someone else out there, but they know they've been spied on."

"Kate, breathe. They don't know it's you," Kurt tried to comfort her. "They haven't caught you."

"It's too close," she shook her head. "It's way to close. It's right in front of them. I saw the pictures at Steve's apartment. I saw all of it. I saw a list of names that are Hydra. They're investigating it."

"But do they suspect you?" Kurt asked her.

"Steve doesn't," she shook her head.

"Then bank on that," he nodded.

"I can never go back there," she continued to shake her head as she walked over and sat on the couch, her elbows propped against her knees as her hands came to either side of her head and ran through her hair.

"Just suddenly stopping will give you away," Kurt's voice had a frown in itself. "We just need ot be careful."

"I have to stop going," she looked up at him.

"You can't suddenly stop," he reminded her. "That's too risky. Too dangerous."

"But I can't keep going," she frowned.

"One last time. Just one more time," he assured her. "Then you can hide."

Katherine had known that the game that she had found herself playing was a dangerous one. She knew it was risky. She knew it could and most likely would to some degree blow up in her face. But the moment it had almost completely blown up in her face, she realized how much she was beginning to regret taking part in it. The risk wasn't worth it.

The Avengers Tower had once seemed an easy in-and-out target to Katherine. Now, it was a place that she feared the idea of being found out. After having talked to Kurt and deciding that it was best to have one last visit undercover in the Tower to not raise suspicion after she had found out that Steve and the others knew that someone had been snooping, she had waited a week before sneaking back in later in the night.

She knew that cameras were going to pick her up, and she allowed them to. It was the only way to not raise suspicion. Just because she knew that they were onto her didn't mean that she should immediately hide herself further. That would have been a mistake that made it obvious that it was her.

She glanced through more file boxes on her final trip, hoping to see anything she anything else that would be useful to inform Hydra about. When she found that there was not much more than what she had already sent over, which she suspected was due to them knowing about her snooping, she decided to look through the boxes in curiosity.

Steve's were the main one's she was concerned about. Taking out more of the files and looking at the pictures, she found more from when Hydra was undercover within S.H.I.E.L.D. and from before her father had passed away. She wasn't in any of the images, but her sister and father were spread throughout a few of them.