Assassinating Captain America

Chapter 1

The ice is slippery under my feet and I flail my arms so I don't fall over.

"Real graceful Kara," I mutter to myself. You'd think since I was an assassin I'd be good at this, but I've never really learned to skate and my reflexes are pretty shaky when I'm on ice. Plus it's hard to think about what I'm doing when I'm trying to figure out my assignment better.

Being an assassin isn't easy. Well, I guess I'm not an assassin because I've never killed anyone before, but I've done training missions and such. My job before being assigned to kill my target was to figure out who was who and such. However, like my assassin job, I've never actually used it on real mission. Guess us 'bad guys' just can't do anything until everything is in place.

There is only one thing in our way: Captain America. Why my boss isn't as worried about the other Avengers, I don't know. All I know is my assignment: Find and kill Captain America. Humph, easier said than done.

My mind works out the many almost impossible ways I could catch Captain America alone, or at least not with too many other Avengers; I don't want to be killed yet, thank you very much. See, this is why I skate while I'm thinking. My mind only works when I'm doing something foreign to me and, since I was always busy training and never learned how to skate, this triggered my mind to work at, quite frankly, an impressive speed.

However, none of my situations presented themselves right away and I was thinking I might just hang around town till I can find out who Captain America's other identity is when I heard a yell. Not a super alarming or surprised yell, like I was hoping because I was seriously hoping that the lake would open up and there'd be some supervillian and Captain America would come to save everyone and I could kill him, but a simple "Watch Out!"

I was wondering why someone called that when my skate was hit by a hockey puck, and I don't mean it lightly tapped my skate. Okay, maybe it was a light tap, but I don't know how to skate so don't judge.

I flip and fall down awkwardly on the ice. Told you, I'm not good on ice.

Someone skate over to help me up. He has bright blue eyes and dark blond hair and a bit of an embarrassed smile.

"Hey," Some guy calls him, "get the puck first!"

He shoots me another smile before zipping down the ice in surprising speed and sending the puck back to his friends. Then he skates over to me again. By now I'm trying in vain to get up. Whatever, I'll just take my skates off and... he sticks his hand out. I grab it awkwardly; I'm not really used to being around people. You could say I'm a bit of an outcast; we don't have much people back at the base other than the errand runners, only way-too-serious golems that once called themselves that. That's what I'm turning into: a monster, someone who can't feel any emotion and just does things, not afraid of death or anything. Not that I'm afraid of death, and I don't mind numbing out everything. I've got a bit of a head start after my brother died since I just tuned out as much as I could after that.

"There you go!" The man says encouragingly as he pulls me up with surprising strength. I use his arm to steady myself and soon I'm standing on my own two feet again. He scratches the back of his neck. "Sorry about the puck."

I just look at him blankly. What am I supposed to do? In the base we would just nod, but no one apologizes for anything at the base so I'm not used to this, and it isn't like he's from the base so I'm not about to nod respectfully to him.

He must've thought I didn't understand since I didn't really respond. "You know, for hitting you with the puck. My bad." His smile asks for forgiveness and I finally catch on and smile back. He relaxes a bit and for the first time I notice everything about him.

First of all, he's strong. And I don't mean one of those guys that lift weights at the beach, I mean that he doesn't have the rippling muscles, but his body is strong and looks like it's been through a lot to get there. Through his blue eyes I can see that he holds some sorrow, like we all do, and some secrets, maybe a bit more than the average person. I was taught to read people, don't judge. But his eyes are also withholding, I know there's something that I can't quite grasp about him. He's mysterious, I automatically like him.

No, not like like, I'm just attracted to him, and not the googly-eyed crush sort of attracted, but he just feels like someone I might want to be around.

He starts skating away and I continue skating. My suspicious mind wanders to the image of him and I try to analyze his body structure and where the heck he got that kind of a mysterious look from. It didn't look cold enough to be an assassin's glare, but still, it was too withholding to be an average person. No, whoever this guy is has learned to guard his identity well. But why?

Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by a pain in my feet. I slowly make my way to the side of the frozen lake and sit on a bench, looking down at my skates. They were a nice white colour and tight around the foot, more like a figure-skater's skate than one used for recreation, even though the blade attached is made for less experienced people.

I slowly remove my skates, putting on my boots instead after stretching my feet gratefully. I have large feet, you could say, and not very shapely at all. My feet still ache slightly. Humph, serves me right for trying to squeeze my large feet into those ballerina shoes. 'Ballerina shoes' is my nickname for practically any shoe that doesn't fit my feet or is uncomfortable. That's why I love boots; there are almost no 'ballerina shoe' boots except if you go to those weird expensive stores.

I notice that guy from earlier leaving and for some reason I can't get him off my mind. Don't get me wrong I am definitely not crushing, I never crush and I'm pretty sure that a crush would feel different than this, I'm just overly suspicious and curious. I feel like I should get to know him some more, but I can't let it interfere with the mission so I just decide to ask his name.

"Hey!" I call, running over to him. "Didn't catch your name."

"Steve," He sticks out his hand and I shake it, "Steve Rogers."