Titanium | Barnes (1)

1. Recruitment

The lock is easy to pick with the SHIELD tech she had been granted. When she steps in, two scientists look up with frowns on their faces. "Relax," she says in French, plastering that smile on her face again. "I've been told to help you with your formula. Monsieur Bonville said you were expecting me?"

Just before the scientist can lunge for a hidden gun, Malka surges forward, flinging her heel into his neck before wrapping her legs around the other's shoulders. Her garrote stretches across skin as she tugs. The man's scream gets caught in his throat as he slowly goes down, her lips twisting up as she lowers his body.

Reaching against her chest, Malka removes the vile hidden there and untwists. She pours exactly one tube's worth of the capped formula into the vile before she tosses the rest into the hazardous material. Ripping pages of the notebooks lying before her, she also attaches a SHIELD flash drive, corrupting the computers around her.

A shiver runs down her spine.

Before SHIELD, perhaps she would have instantly shot behind her, but morality has made her weak. Luckily for Natasha as Malka simply raises her gun with an arched brow instead of following her instinct. "I told you you can't sneak up on me," Malka says.

Natasha rolls her eyes. "Coulson's pulling the plug. I've come to get you."

"Why? I thought you were busy with the Luchkov job."

"Barton's compromised."

For a moment, she hesitates. "That concerns me why?"

Natasha clenches her jaw. "Because it concerns me. He's my partner."

Malka's body tenses. Partner. The only thing a partner is good for is to soften your resolve and destroy your life. "Barton can handle himself." She turns back to the computer to make sure everything is corrupt.

"It involves the Tesseract."

Her fingers freeze. After a moment, Malka straightens with a sigh, flicking a strand of hair back as she looks at Natasha. "Meet you outside in ten. First, I've gotta blow this place to hell."

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"What did that punching bag ever do to you?"

Malka wasn't expecting the famed Captain America to look so desolate when she was given the order to bring him in. She had heard stories—tales of Steve Rogers' heart of gold. She has seen his face in person only once before, not that he would know. The hope of the Allies in a war where only violence prevailed. Looking at him now, she has to fight the urge to sneer.

His head snaps up from his spot, his hand stilling before the punching bag he had just put up after he destroyed the last one. His blue eyes scour her face, but she gives no indication of emotion. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but who are you?"

"Agent Laska. Director Fury sent me."

His shoulders relax as he shakes his head and returns to his punching routine.

"Can't sleep?"

"Slept for seventy years, ma'am. I think I've had my fill."

Malka shrugs as she walks through the empty gym towards him. "Then go out to a bar. Celebrate. See the world. It's what I want to do."

Steve pauses and looks up at her, his eyes shining in the low light. She runs her gaze down his face, trying to understand. The golden boy of America reduced to a lost man clinging to threads of reality. Yet American soldiers remain the blindest of them all.

"When I went under, the world was at war," Steve says. "I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."

"The world lost too much," she replies. "Humanity has made some mistakes. Some recently."

"You here with a mission, ma'am?"

She smirks as her fingers run over the file in her hand. "How'd you guess?"

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"According to Fury, trying to save it." She holds out the file, making sure it is open to the right information.

Steve seems to stop breathing for a moment as he takes the file and sits. "HYDRA's secret weapon."

A shiver runs down her back. "According to the file, Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think—the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. Fury seems to think that's something the world sorely needs."

"Who took it from you?"

"Goes by Loki." Malka had seen the security footage before coming here. Seen what this Loki is capable of, how easily he took down so many trained operatives. "He's not from around here. There's not much I can tell you unless you agree to work with SHIELD. The world has become even stranger than you already know."

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."

A scoff echoes from Malka's lips as she takes back the file. "Ten dollars says you're wrong." He ignores her as he picks up his duffle and an extra punching bag and begins heading out. "I left a debriefing packet in your apartment. Any advice on this thing that we should know?"

"You should have left it in the ocean."

"That's what I said."

Steve pauses at the threshold and glances back at her. "Why'd Fury send you?"

"Maybe he thought we could bond." She shrugs, steeling her expression as she stares at him unflinchingly. "After all, if you bothered to read anything he sent you, you'd know you're not the only one out of time. Enjoy your evening, Captain. I'll see you soon."

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Chapter 1 up! It'll be an interesting story ;)

Hope you enjoyed!

-L