State of Grace ; The Avengers

03; urgency

Karina was told she was given two nights to pack her things before she was set to board the helicarrier. But one of those nights she was meant to recruit someone for helping track the cube. In fact, all of the level seven agents that night were sent to recruit someone. Fury had to get Captain Rogers, Coulson had to call Natasha, Natasha had to get Dr. Bruce Banner while she had no idea who she had to recruit. Lara tried to ask to get someone, but Fury refused, stating they needed to get her tested as soon as possible.

She entered her apartment on the first night, setting her keys on the table. A package was waiting for her with the word ASSIGNMENT written in bold on the top. She didn't even get two minutes to rest before she was thrown into the action. Karina sighed, lifting the file up and opening it. She disabled the code and read the file, many videos of a certain billionaire and his suit.

She was being sent to recruit Tony fucking Stark. Of course it would be him.

She tossed the file onto her table, she could procrastinate for a little while, she wasn't given a specific time in which she had to give him his orders. So she stalked around her apartment. Looking at some of the old photos she had decided to frame. There weren't many, only ones from when she was very little, in little dresses and pigtails, something she had long since outgrown. She was smiling at someone behind the camera, something she didn't do very often anymore, and next to her was a sleeping baby.

In the two seconds of noticing it, it was smashed on the floor.

She tried not to think about the past, when she thought about it, bad memories came up. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to avoid any of the painful flashbacks. "Black Ice does not feel," a voice in her head yelled, like a drill sergeant. "You are ruthless, you stop for no one."

"Souložit." she cursed, running a hand through her hair. "You do not feel," she told herself, curling her fingers into her scalp. Taking a breath, the assassin smoothed herself out, grabbing the files on the desk and walking back to her car.

Once inside the computer SHIELD installed whizzed to life. It asked for a request, she just shut it off. She drove in silence for awhile before something began to eat away at her mind. "Computer," it chimed. "Search Adeline Niklova."

There was a slight pause. "No results show for Adeline Niklova in the SHIELD databanks, shall I do an external search?"

"Yes,"

"Searching...." Karina bit her lip as she caught a glimpse of Iron Man zoom through the sky above her. "One file detected."

She checked her tinted mirrors, looking like she was a normal driver coming home from work. "Open file."

On her window, in the corner, there was the file. It was of a teenage girl, no older than seventeen. The photo was of the seventeen year old, smiling. It was taken on a street, like someone was stalking her. It sent a shiver up Karina's spine. She took a look at the file a little longer, before her blood ran cold.

Instead of SHIELD logo at the top, it was different. "Computer, enlarge logo."

"Enlarging."

The file pixelated for a moment, then clearing to show a red symbol. A skull with tentacles coming out of it. Hydra's symbol. She stared at it for a moment, nearly crashing into someone once or twice but she didn't care. Adeline was involved with Hydra. Or worse, she was being used.

"Virus detected!" the computer alerted. "Shutting down."

Karina grunted in frustration, watching as the computer shut down at it's own accord. This always happened, her computer getting viruses. She's had it checked by SHIELD's top tech people and they've come up with nothing. No trace of a virus anywhere in the system. It was like the virus was contained in the files she always tried to look up.