Avengers Tower
The blinding sun beamed its way through the windows as the assassins blue eyes squinted from the harsh light.
Today was the day she was meeting the Avengers. She knew nothing of them, only that red room was not too fond of them, one in particular.
Katerina dragged her feet towards the bathroom that was attached to her room. Slipping off the pjs she had borrowed the night before, The brunette stepped int the shower and let the hot water run over her bruises she acquired the night before in the alleyway. Her dark brown hair slipped out of its ringlets as the water weighed it sown and her skin glistened from the sparkling water. This was probably the nicest shower she has had in a long time.
Drying herself off, Katerina got dressed into some clothes that had been left to her by Natasha the night before. They were nice and casual, black tank top, black jeans, black boots and a tan jacket.
Wasn't something Katerina would usually get to wear as her clothes back in the red room were mostly her training gear or basic necessities. It was a good change.
The brunette stood in front of the mirror attached to the wall staring at her face. Her cheek was purple and blue from bruising with a small healing cut and her lip was purple with a scab as she started to heal.
"I look like hell." Katerina said monotony through her thick Russian accent. The brunette scanned her appearance while thinking out loud unaware of the door being open and someone standing waiting for her.
"Personally I think you look fine, my clothes fit you well. The bruises just add too the look" Natasha said through a smirk while leaning on the door frame. Katerina looked at her with a small smile in the corner of her mouth. "Everyone is downstairs if you are ready to meet them."
Katerina's POV:
I nodded knowing that it is probably better to get introduced to the other avengers now rather than later. It was fairly quiet until we got to the elevator and the A.I I now know as F.R.I.D.A.Y asked Natasha where were were going to.
"Main room." The redhead answered as we stepped in before the doors closed behind us.
"Steve told me that you have abilities.'' Her almost sympathetic tone caught me off guard as she turned to face me. I kept my eyes on the floor avoiding eye contact knowing the question that is coming next. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you get them?"
Part of me didn't know how to answer for them as I knew it would just end in pity.
"I uh.....I was experimented on when I was a child. I had no idea until yesterday when I escaped-" I cut off afraid of how she would react if i told her I was from the red room. "-escaped the people I'm on the run from. I thought it was just part of the regular torture, but it wasn't, I was a test subject against my own will for years with no idea. I don't even know what they are fully, something to do with fire and water as well as my strength and speed."
"Wait so you didn't know you were a test subject or that it was successful?''
I shook my head just as the elevator door opened to reveal
In the main room, sitting on some couches were Steve and 9 other people.
I followed Natasha towards everyone as she pointed at each person introducing them
"Katerina, this is Tony,'' as she pointed to him he gave a smirk picking up his coffee and taking a sip.
"Clint, Bucky, Sam," she continued as each of them gave a small wave and a smile.
"Wanda and Pietro are the twins and have got abilities that are most similar to yours, its likely Wanda will be helping you the most." Pietro gave a slightly mischievous smirk and Wanda had a light hearted smile that reminded me of Tatiana. I felt myself thinking back to her for a moment before pushing the dark, depressing thoughts out of my head until I'm alone and done meeting everyone.
"This is Thor, vision and Bruce." Each of them gave a small wave.
"If you are comfortable with it, me and Tony thought we could run some tests in the lab to look into what your powers are exactly and understand the best ways to help you." Bruce's quiet but slightly comforting voice spoke over the silence.
"Yes that is fine." I answer with slight hesitation hoping that the lab doesn't trigger any bad memories.
Many of them turned to me with confusion and interest. I assume they didn't know I was Russian and were slightly surprised by my accent.
Tony broke the silence with a clap of his hands "well, lets head down to the labs and get started." Him and Bruce stood up from the couches in sync followed by Steve after who smiled at me as he walked over.
"I'm coming down to the labs with you, I don't trust Tony to not smother you with questions, he tends to be slightly overpowering." Steve chuckles as he moves his gaze between Tony and me.
I nod agreeing for him to join me. I know I would be more comfortable with someone I know a little more, even if its just by a day.
***
We make it down to a series of labs and head into Bruce's. He asked me to sit in the chair as he takes some blood to analyse. Part of me wishes I didn't have to remove the jacket. I see Steve's face drop slightly at the sight of all my scattered scars from past missions and the daily torture I received in the red room. The most noticeable were where burning metal wires were wrapped around by arms leaving lines of burn scars on both my arms.
"Usually I wouldn't mention it but, kid, what happened for you to get these?'' Tony has changed from his usually witty tone to one filled with sorrow and shock. I kept by head down as tears filled my eyes. The three stood in shock around me. I looked up at Steve who wrapped his arms around my shoulders pulling me into a hug as I silently cried into him. Nobody asked any questions as it would just make me uncomfortable. Which I was thankful for.
After a few seconds I pulled away looking at Bruce and nodding slightly to carry on with the tests.
***
3rd person POV:
About an hour later, the test result come back.
"It's incredible," Bruce said slightly stunned by the results while walking back over to Steve and Katerina. Tony left about 20 minutes ago into his lab to tinker with some projects. "Your abilities originate from the mind stone. Similar to Wanda and Pietro, but much stronger connection. It's very advanced and likely to have taken weeks to complete the experiment."
"Yeah it did, I was around ten at the time, I thought that it was just part of the regular torture but turns out they were using me for the experiments. I was strapped to a table for two weeks." Katerina's voice sounded slightly monotone as if she had told the story a hundred times only to herself.
Steve gaze turned to Katerina,the rage was building up in his stomach at the thought of someone doing that to a child at all never mind against their own will.
"Can you tell what her powers are from the tests?" Steve quickly changed the subject. Bruce nods rather enthusiastically as he produces a hologram from his tablet to explain everything to us as Tony walks into the room to be apart of it.
"You seem to possess the power over the elements, so far you have only used fire and water but in time you can learn to control the others." Bruce explained as he moves the hologram around showing a picture of Katerina's DNA next to regular human DNA. It shows clear changes that the experiment did.
Katerina was curious but didn't fully understand what he meant by the elements. "What exactly are the others?"
"The other two main ones are air and earth, but there is other natural things you might be able to manipulate such as electricity and metal. I assume that you are also aware of your super soldier abilities from your strength and speed" Katerina nodded her head. Bruce carried on just as Natasha entered the labs behind the rest of them.
"Hey Steve, fury is in meeting room 5 and wants a word." She sounded slightly serious while talking to him before her expression softening slightly when she turned to the rest of them as Steve leaves. "Hey I wanted to know if you guys are done I would steal Kat and take her down to the training room, maybe we can see what she is capable of."
Katerina smiled, she got her first nickname already, 'Kat' it was Tatiana used to call her but she was open to other people saying it as well.
***
In the training room:
Katerina's POV:
The training room was massive, in the middle on some mats stood Sam and Bucky
"Ok Kat we're going to do with some hand to hand combat, we will start off with Sam." Natasha looked over at Sam who stood opposite me ready to spar.
Sam swung first just as I got out of the way and threw a punch to his stomach while it was free. He grunted in surprise. Returning to his upright position he threw another punch straight at me. Almost as instinct, I grabbed his hand and twisted it to his back before tripping him and pinning him down to the floor. It felt good knowing that I managed to get him pinned down in under a 30 seconds. I look up at Nat for a split second who had a stopwatch in her hand as she timed it smirking. Bucky looked over slightly surprised. He was not going to let that one down for a while and will likely torment Sam about it.
"26 seconds, impressive." I could practically hear her smirking.
Sam got up and looked at me with a smile. "Your good, maybe we should step it up a notch and try someone else."
His hand gestured to Bucky as he got up off of the mat. I could tell that he was slightly embarrassed to be beaten by someone who was a teenager not 2 days ago.
Bucky made his way over towards where Sam was before. I know that metal arm of his is going to probably be used against me in the spar. I'd do my best to avoid it.
"Don't go easy on me." I said with a little chuckle knowing he probably would since he was fighting someone who was a lot smaller than them.
"Oh I wont, I need to avenge Sam's pride." He smirked while looking at his friend laughing.
Nat started the timer and i took the opportunity to go for the first punch going straight for his stomach. My fist collided with him and he let out a groan of slight aching. He tried to swing a punch with his metal arm to collide with by shoulder, causing me to duck out of instinct, while ducked, I took the opportunity to go for his legs and trip him up. He crashed down on the mat as I got up. Now I know he defiantly wont go easy on me. The fight continued for a while that I lost count but we started getting to know where each of us are confident at. Bucky delivered a clean punch to my side causing me to wince in pain, I know that will bruise later. I kicked out his locked knee before he grabbed me and held my hand between my shoulder blades. I finished it by using the force in my back to flip him forward over and crashing hard on the mat before pinning him down and pushing his wrist between his shoulder blades. That must have hurt as he tapped out with his metal arm causing me to release his normal one.
Good to know I have won so far against two avengers on my first day here.
Nat stopped the clock as he tapped out before looking surprisingly at Wanda who was sharing glances with her twin.
"7 minutes 46 seconds. Very impressive."
Bucky and i stood up panting as that felt like way longer than 7 minutes.
"7 minutes is that all?" Bucky questioned stunned as he glanced between Nat and me. "Well Nat your up, she needs some real competition."
The ex-assassin laughed as she has had time to analyse my strong and weak points knowing that likely she will target what I'm weakest at.
Sam was on the timer. Nat and i got into position after i had time to catch my breath.
Nat wasn't going easy on me though I recognised her pattern of attacks and defends as part of the training in the Red Room, seems as though they train everyone with the same patterns. I started to anticipate when and where her punches and kicks would come and I could see her slight confusion when I anticipated and mentally predicted when she would strike and how. She strikes the same way as I usually did. I took the opportunity to break the pattern. Performing my favourite move that won most of my training battles back in Russia. I grabbed her wrist and wrapped my legs around her neck, twisting round and pulling her to the floor hard. I kept my legs around her until she tapped out. We stood up as Sam called out the timer.
"14 minutes 27 seconds, wow!" He looked astonished but Nat had a stern look of confusion and shock plastered on her face.
"Where did you learn that move?" She questioned me, I felt my breath quiet down as panic rose in my stomach and a lump formed in my throat.
"I-I," I tried to find the words to answer but my mind was blank.
"Wait," she stopped me before I could answer, "what is your last name?"
Oh god, the one question I didn't want to come up. But I had no choice but to answer, she was suspicious and would likely find out sooner or later.
"Markova." Natasha's face dropped as she realised what the brunette had just said. "My name is Katerina Markova."
My monotone expression clashed with Natasha's now stunned one.
"Your Red Room aren't you? There is only one place I have seen that move performed by other than me, and that is in the Red Room....Wait is that who you are running from?" Her voice was slightly raised as everyone stood shocked at me. Nat's face softened as she saw the tears threatening to fall down my face. She knows what's it is like in there and before she spoke she pulled me in. I sobbed as she held onto me.
"Shhhh,shhhh, they can't get you in here. Your safe." She comforted me as her eyes started to water thinking of how the Red Room is.
For the first time since i was 5 years old, i felt safe, i know i could trust the avengers. They helped me, I don't have to go on the run.
She let go of be and a single tear fell as she looked at me.
" you know I recognised you straight away, Madame B mentioned your name and experimentation in the same sentence. She had a file in her hands that had a picture of you in it. I still remember the file I couldn't help but wonder if they went though with experimenting, I guess they did. How a 10 year had survived that kind of experimentation I have no idea, but I'm happy you did, look where you are now."
I small smile made its way onto my mouth as I listened to what she said. I'd never have to go back,
"Steve and I were talking earlier, we wanted to know if you wanted to stay a while. You can keep the spare room and we will train you, not that you need it though." Natasha smirked as I hugged her.
"Thank you."
Authors note: jeez that was a long chapter, now my back hurts, note to self, don't spend 5 hours straight writing and editing.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Ill get the next one out soon and will probably focus on her powers and on Steve and Kat for a bit, maybe some romance might blossom.....OF COURSE IT WILL!!
See you later....
SM xxx