𝘖𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘴 & 𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 || 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘭

72. Assassin (rewrite) - P2

She awoke to bright lights above her, surrounded by mirrors, weaponless. The redhead looked in one of the mirrors to see her wrists clasped in escape-proof cuffs behind her back, her ankles tied to the legs of the chair that was attached to the floor.

The door opened, and in stepped a tall black man, an eyepatch over his left eye, dressed in a black suit with a matching black coat that flowed behind him when he walked.

"Nice to finally meet you," he started, to which the woman simply stared at him, emerald eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "First of all, do you speak English?"

She made no response.

"Can you even speak?"

No response. The man sighed.

"I assume you'll understand a name," the man said. "I am Director Nicholas Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D."

The woman tugged at her restraints, why nobody knew, as she knew they would hold her.

Director Fury's eyes landed on the emblem on the woman's belt.

"What organisation are you from?" he inquired.

He noticed the redhead's eyes flit between his own and the floor, a look of almost... fear... in her eyes, but still got no verbal answer. Director Fury decided to ask one more question before leaving. He was probably going to get no answer anyway.

"What is your purpose?" he asked. "Your place in the world?"

And in a mechanical voice, as if practiced every day for years, the woman spoke.

"I have no place in the world."

Her words were accompanied by a thick Russian accent. Fury had to force himself from flinching at how controlled the woman sounded.

"What do you mean?" Fury demanded, but the woman had returned to silence.

He had to give up, there was no phasing her any more.

So Director Fury tossed her in a cell.

---

Three long days later, nobody knew anything else about the woman. Biometric scans had been carried out - face and fingerprint - but nothing ever showed up. It was as if she didn't exist. Even managing to capture her was more luck than skill.

Agent Barton had been ordered to visit her every day, as he was the one who made the call to take her captive instead of eliminating her. Each day, he got nothing, but he knew she was breaking, slowly. Like a vase that slowly cracks in the heat.

"I brought you something fresh to eat," Agent Barton said, stepping into the cell and placing a tray he carried on a small table beside the one from that morning in which the woman had refused to eat.

In fact, she hadn't eaten since she arrived.

The woman was sat on the floor in the corner of the cell, knees tucked into her chest, staring ahead like she had done almost consistently for three days straight.

Barton, stood a fair distance away, crossed his arms and sighed.

"You've gotta eat or you'll die. We aren't letting you out until you talk, and you refuse to talk. If you stay like this for another two weeks or so, your body will just give out on you. And we didn't kill you, so why would you make yourself suffer a long death?"

Still, no response from the woman. Not even a muscle movement.

"Look, I don't wanna be here, and I know you don't want to be either," he sighed, before hearing a mumble.