Christine crept along the rafters and listened in on Ultron. She was instructed to keep some distance in case a fight broke out.
He was talking to someone as they lay on the ground. Upon further inspection she realized that it was Klaw. He was screaming in agony and clutching what was left of his arm.
"Do not compare me with Stark! It's a thing with me. Stark is a sickness!"
"Ah, Junior." Tony showed himself to Ultron and the twins. "You're gonna break your old man's heart."
"If I have to." He replied. Christine watched as Clint and Natasha made their way downstairs. Trying to remain quiet while Ultron was distracted by Tony,Steve, and Thor.
"We don't have to break anything."
"Clearly you have never made an omelet."
"He beat me by one second."
"Ah, this is funny, Mr.Stark." Pietro took a step forward and caught Christine's attention. She hadn't seen him since Sokovia. He seemed to be staring at something in the distance and she followed his eyes to the warheads.Some of them still had Stark painted on them from years ago. "It's what? Comfortable, like old times?"
She knew he was referring to Tony's time as an arms dealer.
"This was never my life." Tony responded.
"You two can still walk away from this."
"Oh we will." The other twin responded. Her brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail and her pale features matched her brothers. She glared back at the team.
"I know you've suffered."
Ultron interrupted Steve before he could finish. "Captain America! God's righteous man. I can't physically throw up but..."
"If you believe in peace then let us keep it." Thor said.
"I think you're confusing peace with quiet."
"What's with the vibranium?"
"I'm glad you asked that because this is where I tell you my evil plan."
His hand began to glow and she heard the whine of his suit. Christine jumped into action and threw up a shield around them. The shot Ultron had taken was absorbed and he groaned before launching at Tony. Steve grabbed the nearest robot and decapitated it with his shield and Thor did the same.
While Christine was distracted, someone grabbed her from behind.She elbowed them and was met with a pained groan. Head butting them as hard as she could, he managed to let go of her. Without looking, she delivered a swift kick to his solar plex. He flew off the platform she was on and onto the one below.
When Christine was able to gain her balance back, she looked down to see a pair of blue eyes looking at her. The twin smirked at her before disappearing in a blue blur. She took that as her cue to leave.
Bullets rained down on her and she kept her head down. Klaw's men were attacking everyone they could. She headed down the stairs and noticed two of them coming up. They began to shoot at her and she ducked down. Looking over the side of the stairs, she leapt over the railing.
"Is this a code green?"
"No! Stand down, banner." She heard. She looked up in the rafters and saw Clint was perched and shooting arrows. He fired a few arrows behind her and shot the men on the landing.
Christine rounded the corner and took out a few men along the way. Her shadows helped,too. She felt a presence behind her and threw a dagger. It imbedded itself in her enemy's leg. Christine punched the same leg and he fell to the ground.
A roundhouse kick to the jaw knocked him unconscious.
A thunderous voice drew her attention. She looked over to see Wanda behind Thor,her hands were placed around his head and he was put into a trance.
When she looked around, she noticed that most of the team wasn't fighting. They were all in their own trances. She must have been doing this while the team was fighting.
Suddenly Christine was hit with something and went flying. She was tossed over the railing and slammed into the platform beneath it.
Wanda stalked towards Christine, about to use her powers again. Christine rolled onto her feet and blocked her attack.
Wanda went to strike again when her arm was grabbed in a vice grip, effectively stopping her assault.
"Not her. He has something different for her."
The siblings both looked at each other. They shared some type of non verbal conversation. This went on for a couple seconds before Wanda lowered her hands.
Christine glanced at Pietro and he winked at her before taking his sibling with him.
"Jackass." She mumbled.
A sigh escaped her and she made her way over to Thor. Someone landed behind her and she fumbled for her sidearm.
A cold hand covered hers. "Relax, it's me." Clint said.
She relaxed and he let go of her hand. "What the hell happened?"
"The whole team is down. We need to get back to the jet."
~
"The news is loving y'all right now"
Christine ran a hand through her hair and glanced at the monitor in front of them. The new channels were filled with footage of Hulk and Iron Man. Hulk was going on a rampage and Iron Man's efforts to stop him. Judging from the time of voice of the anchorman, they weren't pleased. The footage panned to people in villages throwing food and debris at the Iron Man legionnaires. They were screaming obscenities in their native language, but anyone could infer what they were saying.
The whole team was watching the footage and they were distraught.
"I suggest y'all lay low, and don't come back here."
"Thanks,Maria."
"You okay?" Steve asked her.
"No more than anyone else. You?"
Steve shrugged a shoulder. "I'm not sure."
"Why weren't you affected?"Christine raised an eyebrow at him. "Clint told me that you and him were the only ones."
She thought back to what Pietro said.
Not her, he has something different for her.
She was about to say something when she caught a peek of the monitor. She tuned into what the Anchorwoman was saying and only that.
"We have received footage from an anonymous source, it seems to be dating back from five years ago. The two parties involved are affiliated with the covert operation S.H.I.E.L.D, which fell years ago. Let's take a look."
The footage seemed shaky, like it was filmed from a cell phone camera. The person filming was panting rather heavy and seemed scared. He was speaking in another language, something middle eastern.
The surroundings were that if somewhere in the Middle East.
Or what was left of it.
There was crumbling buildings and dead bodies littering the ground. In the background gunshots and explosions were heard.Each explosion resulted in the camera being shook.
The camera steadied and two women were in frame. The camera wasn't focused enough for them to be identifiable. They seemed to be in a heated argument, even though one of them was holding a gun to the other's head.
The hostage tackled the other woman to the ground and they fell in a heap.
A rumble was heard and the camera person dropped the camera. After a few seconds of awful camerawork, it went back to the two fighters. The roles were reversed. The previous hostage held the barrel of the gun to the other's forehead. She bent down and whispered something in her ear before straightening. One of the women's hair had fallen out of its ponytail and cascaded down their back.
In the struggle, they had shifted enough for their faces to be seen. Christine gasped as she looked at her mirror image. She was younger then, and her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. She could see her S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on the shoulder.
She could sense that the team was looking at her, but she ignored them. She kept watching herself in the footage. She knew what was going to happen, she lived it. But it still seemed unreal. Time slowed down as she watched her nightmare unravel.
She looked up at the woman in front of her and waited. As she moved her finger to pull the trigger, Christine teleported behind her. She took her sheathed knife and drove it through her back.
She gasped in pain and began to fall backward, but Christine caught her and eased her down to the ground.
The footage ended right there.
"What the hell was that?"
"Christine?" Steve asked, his eyebrows were pinched in worry.
Her breathing was too labored and she felt like she wasn't getting enough oxygen. She couldn't tell if her extremities were going numb from oxygen deprivation or shock. Falling to her knees, she continued to stare at the monitor. At this point the ringing in her ears had gotten so bad that she wasn't able to hear anything but her own thumping heart. Someone blocked her view of the monitor, but it didn't matter. She knew that they had seen the same thing that she had.
They saw as Christine drove a blade through someones back and killed them in cold blood.
They just didn't know that the same person whose death haunts her was the same person who she had killed.
Christine sobbed as she whispered her name over and over again.
"Amilla."
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