Russia, Moscow - December 25th 1987
Katarina Averina paced around the spacious living room, cradling her two month old baby, mindlessly humming an old lullaby
"You like it?" She smiled down to her baby "Our first and last Christmas together" she sighed sadly as she looked out the window
"They'll be coming soon for you Katya but you mustn't be scared" Katarina told her daughter who was playing with her long brown hair "I'm sorry I won't be there, I'll be long gone but don't worry, no matter how bad it is there, you have to be very strong"
"You have a gift, it is very powerful so don't let them know you have it" Katarina continued, looking into the baby's greyish blue eyes through her brown ones "You have your father's eyes, maybe one day you'll meet him" Katya's eyes shut and open, a sign she was tired. Katarina looked out the window and saw men approaching the house, so she wrapped the child into a blanket and put her in a Moses basket, which she than ran up the stairs with, quickly putting in a room
"I love you, my little firebird" Katarina said as she kissed Katya on her head before running downstairs
Katya heard arguing, a lot of punches, a smashing sound and then silence. Light footsteps then filled the silence, coming nearer and nearer, then the door opened
"Little Katya Averina, so small and innocent, perfect" a voice purred as a man picked her up and carried her away, out of her home. They stopped and turned around and all Katya saw was her two storey house, lit up in flames. Her mothers screams filled the place
"Don't worry, you will soon enjoy this" A voice yet again purred
Kayla shot up in her bed in a cold sweat, that night was almost 25 years ago. She was now 24 years old and a lot had changed.
She did go through the Red Room, became best friends with Natasha when she was four, they blew up the Red Room when nine, worked for Ivan Petrovitch up until they were 15. They met a 15 year old Agent Clint Barton of S.H.I.E.L.D and both soon became Agents Natasha Romanoff and Kayla Clark of S.H.I.E.L.D and after that three became best friends and STRIKE Team Delta, also known as Fury's Favourites or Phil Coulson's kids, which was true, Phil was their father figure and they had Agent Melinda May or The Calvary as their kick ass mother. Life seemed normal, well as normal as it can get for three of the world's most dangerous and feared assassins and the best spies. A lot changed when Kayla met Thor the God of Thunder in New Mexico and recruited him for the Avengers Initiative which he gladly agreed to, so after that, she went on a lot of 'normal' missions and was injured on the last one in Abidjan. She was currently in their shared apartment , located in Hell's Kitchen
Kayla looked over to her phone to see it was 2 pm. Phil had made her sleep, again using his 'special patches'. Natasha was on a mission in Russia, which she was annoyed about and Clint was... Well she didn't know what he was doing, just that it had something to do with a base called PEGASUS and the Tesseract.
She got dressed in a black leather jacket, dark purple tank, black jeans and black ankle boots. She attached her S.H.I.E.L.D Badge along with her gun to her waist and her shock gauntlets that were like Black Widow's Widow bites to her wrists. Kayla locked the apartment and walked across the street to Starbucks, god knows she needed it. She ordered the coffee and sat down reading a newspaper. About fifteen minutes someone sat across from her.
"Hey Coulson" Kayla said not taking her eyes of the paper
"I can never scare you, can I?" Phil whined
"Clint did and then after that he spent two days in the vents thinking I was going to kill him" Kayla smiled "Where's the Hawk? Why isn't he back yet?"
"Barton's been... Compromised" Phil stated. Kayla froze and then took a breath
"What happened?" Kayla asked, an emotionless expression across her face
"Remember New Mexico? It seems his brother is here and he stole the Tesseract" Coulson explained, not mentioning Thor's name in public
"I knew that file I had Dr Foster do would come in handy" Kayla told him "Its time to assemble the Avengers, isn't it?"
Coulson nodded, handing her a big black gift box as well as a silver brief cas "Files on The Tesseract and Loki and We need you to get The big guy"
"Who? The Hulk? We all know how that might go down" Kayla scoffed
"No, The Captain" Coulson answered. Kayla raised an eyebrow and opened the gift box and a saw a pair of black heels and a black dress
"You want me to seduce Captain America or bring him in?" Kayla questioned. Coulson laughed and shook his head
"We're now at war Kayla, the iniative is our last hope, you leave for D.C in about half an hour" Coulson stated as he got up
"War, getting sick of those" Kayla rolled her eyes to herself before leaving, picking up the box and briefcase.