Command • T'Challa

Nigeria

The Avengers arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, on the hunt for Brock Rumlow, fugitive HYDRA agent.
They'd been chasing him for weeks, looking everywhere, following him wherever he wreaked havoc. Not hard to follow someone when they are burning and blowing up everything in their path.

Captain America had suspected that maybe Rumlow wanted them to follow him, that maybe it was some kind of a trap, but he knew that they had to press on, but he was worried that this new recruit Stark had sent with them wasn't going to help matters.
This was her first mission, and Steve knew what a first mission felt like-the nerves, the uncertainty, the gnawing fear that you'd fail at the one thing you'd been asked to do. He felt compassion for her, partly because she was an orphan like him, and partly like a big, (much older) brother. She was young, and was the same age as Wanda, whom she stayed close to since the moment she stepped onto the quinjet. Stark had told you that their abilities were somewhat similar, about how HYDRA had experimented on her, just like Wanda.

Her hands were shaking when the doors had opened, and she'd shadowed Wanda in her movements, but Steve saw the fear in her brown eyes when he'd told her to scoutilize out the marketplace, to blend in. She was a new face, and due to her ethnicity, she blended in fairly well, aside from her nervousness.

"Stark said I'd be an Avenger if I was successful here." she had said quietly, but Steve felt she was talking more to herself and less to him.

"You've got to make that decision for yourself, kiddo." Steve had said.

She seemed to think on that, shrugging a little.

"I suppose I do, Captain Rogers." she said after a long pause.
"I guess I do."

..........

Her only job, aside from scouting the marketplace, was to help Wanda, to be backup with her own abilities, and follow the lead. Follow always, following was all Grace had known in her years with SHIELD, to follow orders and never look back.

But looking back was part of her gifts, her abilities. There were many times when she didn't want to remember-not her own past life, or anyone else's. It was too much.

"I know it is hard," Wanda had told her. "But you must do what is right for the greater good, to help us, to help them."
by "them", Wanda had meant the world, and that was a big thing for a young woman from Washington DC to help, or to understand. She had closed her eyes, nodding in agreement with her friend.

Now, in present time, she closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated. She could feel the coldness that emanated from the men she was following, watching their movements, the seeing them as they split up.

"They're splitting up." Grace said through her comlink.

"Copy." Rogers answered. "Pick one and follow him."

"Copy." she said. The man she laid eyes on broke into a brisk jog, and she struggled to keep up with him while acting casual. Grace kept track of him, if only barely, until she was given the order to attack him.
Outside of street fights and training, this was the first time she had ever done anything like this.
She started with her powers, sending a bolt of green from her hands, yanking the bag from his hands. She was unprepared for his reflexes and agility, for he spun around and was coming at her in a matter of a second.
As the man charged at her, her instinct was to turn and run, but she fought back against it, lunging at him with a sharp, hard kick to his ribs. He landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him for a minute. She grabbed the bag back and tore it open.

"Nothing in here, Captain." she said through her comlink, tossing the bag aside.

Captain Rogers didn't answer at first, but through the comlink, she could hear him struggling in a fight.

"Help me!" she could hear Wanda saying through their connection. Wanda could use telepathy over short distances to communicate with Grace, and Grace could communicate to her.
"I'm coming." she answered

Wanda and Rogers were over by one of the office buildings nearby, Rogers fighting some man in a painted skull mask, and Wanda trying to contain the green gas that was inside of the building. Reaching out with her own bolts, Grace assisted Wanda in extracting the gas and shooting it far up into the sky where it couldn't harm anyone.
Just as Grace was getting the last of the gas out, she felt another shift, another disturbance.

"You know, your pal Bucky, he remembered you, when his brain hadn't been in a blender." the man in the skull mask, mask now removed, was saying to Captain Rogers.
Rogers was just staring at the man, his face covered in terrible burn scars. Grace remembered Rumlow, as nearly unrecognizable as he now was, but Grace's focus was not on him, it was onot Captain Rogers.

He was remembering his friend, James Barnes, and without meaning to, Grace saw a memory of the last time Rogers had seen Barnes, and it was in his peripheral vision. He was distracted by this, thinking he was seeing things, and in that exact second, Rumlow suddenly said,

"If I'm gonna go, you're gonna go with me!" and pulled a plug on his vest. He exploded almost instantly, but Grace was fast- she pulled Rogers back, and Wanda threw Rumlow aside, which, unfortunately, ended up being straight through the office building. All of it happened in a nanosecond,

When it was over, the building collapsing, Wanda was shaken. Grace got to her feet and ran over to comfort her.

It wasn't enough, Grace thought, not enough to be a success, not when there was this much loss. Sure, Rumlow was dead, but now they all had blood on their hands, especially poor Wanda. Innocent people had gotten killed and hurt, even though the Avengers were trying to save them.

Grace wasn't sure if it was worth it all, nor did she think this would make her an Avenger. Stark would probably want more action from her before he deemed her useful.

As the quinjet left Lagos, Nigeria, Grave felt relieved to be both out of Africa and headed back to the compound. At least there, she could clear her head, maybe read a book or catch up on the new season of Scandal with Wanda, anything to get their minds off of this mess.

Little did Grace know that it wouldn't be that easy.

.....