PURE AND TAINTED ( wanda maximoff )

one → be more descriptive

PURE AND TAINTED
CHAPTER ONE
( be more descriptive )

DANCING HAD ALWAYS BEEN a way to relieve the stress. Once the music took over, she had let herself go and allowed the music to control her actions. It helped her forget about the past and the split blood on her hands, about the fear that crept on her at every hour of every day. It never really mattered what kind of dance it was 一 whether it be ballet or hip hop, it had always been relaxing and she enjoyed it. Sometimes she'd think back to her first love of dancing, of the way she and her cousins and siblings would dance around the bonfires of the village celebrations. Honestly, she was surprised she had remembered so far back, to the days when she was a child and still human.

But she wasn't human, she hadn't been for a very long time. Her mother had taken that simplest thing from her, cursing her to forever be more of a beast and abomination than she already was. Aline remembered waking up that day, crying and screaming and begging her mother to reverse whatever she had done, but the woman wouldn't hear it. I did it for you and your sister! her mother had said, tears in her dark eyes. You should be thanking me! But Aline did not thank her mother at all; in fact, less than a year later, she left her village behind, holding hands with her cousin and sister.

She'd been aware that half way through her dance lesson, when she had been helping some poor boy with a complicated position, someone had easily slipped into the dance studio. She'd seen him many times but not so much in recent years; though, she assumed it came with the job. Director Nick Fury was a man with secrets, ones that could topple governments and monarchies in a matter of minutes. The first time she had met him was so long ago, when he was just a low level agent tasked with a mission of finding her. She supposed he owed her his great promotion to her.

He stood in the corner of the room, watching her and the class continue on with their lesson, taking full note of the girl's gaze. Though she held a smile on her lips towards her students, they'd occasionally shift to look at him and harden in disbelief. Even when it looked like she was helping and watching her students, she was truly looking at him.

When the class was over, with her dismissing her students to get changed, Fury had approached her only when the room was empty. His hands were clasped behind his back, concealing the manila folder from her view. "Miss Ashford," he greeted politely, "it's been awhile."

Aline hummed in agreement. "It always is with you," she said, leaning on her right leg. "How long has it been 一 five, six years maybe?"

"And you still don't look a day over twenty-five," Fury mused. When he had heard about this girl back then, he almost couldn't believe the rumors. But now looking at her, seeing how little she's aged in the many, many years of them knowing each other, he wishes he could tell his younger self how true those rumors really are.

"Oh, you know, it's just plenty of sunscreen, exercise, and literal magic." She pushed her hair over her shoulder. "What do you want, Fury?" she asked, removing her ballet flats slowly. "As you can see, I'm a busy woman with little time on my hands." After taking off her shoes, she tossed them perfectly into her bag, which lay a mere ten feet from them. Then, she gestured to the studio around her.

"We need your help."

Aline scoffed. "You need my help or S.H.I.E.L.D. needs my help?" she asked. "I told you, Fury, I don't do secret missions, especially after all your cohorts had deemed me 'too dangerous' and tried to kill me." She used finger quotes to emphasize her point. She remembered years ago, when she had helped Fury with some mission involving her kind, which had ended with her being staked. Of course, it hadn't killed her but it still irritated her to know the team didn't trust her and thought she could be killed like that. If only it were that easy...

"At least look it over." He held out the manila folder to her, not even budging when she stared it down.

Eventually, she sighed heavily and took the folder from his hands. She hesitantly opened it, knowing that whatever was inside would be a hard mission that she'd be sucked into. Inside were a series of documents, all of which she quickly skimmed over, but what caught her attention was a small black and white photograph paperclipped to them. It looked to be that of a cube, not bigger than her head, and beside that was another picture of a man with the name H. STARK written at the bottom. She'd heard of Stark before; unfortunately, she never had the pleasure to meet him before his untimely death.

She nodded her head at the cube. "What's this?"

"It's called the Tesseract," Fury answered. "It's an energy source."

Aline nearly laughed at his answer 一 energy source. Whatever it was wasn't just an energy source, it was much bigger than that. In fact, when Fury had first been told about Aline, all he'd been told was that she was a problem. She laughed quietly to herself at that. "Lemme guess: someone took it from your grubby little hands and S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't too happy about them not being in power," she said in a mocking tone, snapping the file shut with a snap. "No surprise there. Who has it?"

"His name's Loki. He's... not from around here."

That name sparked something within her memory, a memory buried so deep that she nearly forgot it. She remembered her mother and father telling her all sorts of things about the gods, about why they do their sacrifices and celebrations. Loki had been a name she remembered clearly, a Norse god of mischief that she looked up to. "I'm not from around here," Aline said and rolled her eyes. "Be more descriptive, Nicky."

The man allowed the nickname to slip; there were more pressing matters to attend to than a silly nickname. "Do you remember the incident in New Mexico a few years ago?" he asked her, and when she nodded, he continued. "He did that."

"Well, damn." Aline smirked. "So, what do you want me to do about this? You want me to find it for you? You're part of a secret government organization, don't you have some super-duper high tech stuff? Why do you need to resort to, well, you know, magic?"

"Your method is much quicker, and it's easier. And you won't be alone; you'll have a whole team of members who will aid you in finding and taking down Loki."

Aline crossed her arms, nearly dropping the folder. "I'm gonna have teammates?" she nearly groaned. "Do you remember the last time I had teammates? They literally staked me." She pointed to her chest, just a few inches short of where her heart was. "Right there, and I may be what I am but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt like a mother一"

"You owe us, Aline," Fury said, his tone sharper. "Don't forget, we made your little... incidents disappear. We can make them reappear at any time."

God, was she tempted to strangle him 一 holding that above her angered her beyond belief. Aline nearly paled at his words and resulted to squeezing her fists as tightly as she could at her sides. The incidents he was speaking of had haunted Aline for years, decades even... Handing him back the file, Aline crossed her arms over her chest defensively.

"So when do we start?"

A/N: hello & welcome to the renewed
version of pure and tainted! thank you
guys so much for all of your support
you've given me. honestly, you guys
supported me so much and i'm so
happy to have you guys ((you
people are absolutely amazing))

also please note that this story is
linked with my bucky barnes fic,
raison d'être so be prepared for
some unfamiliar faces :))