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"We've got a breach in sector two." A tech called out to a passing Maria Hill. She cursed under her breath and turned back to him. She was used to being Fury's right-hand woman, running SHIELD bases was below her. Still, until they got a replacement, Fury wanted her to watch all the deadly weapons, new fangled technology and top-secret files.

"It was probably an animal of some kind." It wasn't the first time a perimeter alarm had gone off. The first couple times, she'd told everyone to go to their battle stations, grabbed herself a gun and headed out there. Turns out it was a rather stubborn squirrel that she and her men then had to spend two hours herding away from the facility. And those suckers bite…

"Uh… I don't think so, ma'am." She went over to look at the screen. A dark, blurred image sped past camera. An alarm blared as she moved into the facility itself. Hill straightened up, all business now.

"I thought all outside doors were locked!"

"Uh… They were… I mean… Yeah, they were. She shot off the lock."

"More thousands of dollars than I care to count worth of technology goes into every SHIELD base and we can't stop someone from gaining access with one gun?" Hill's question wasn't aimed at the tech, but he seemed to take personal offense, looking like a kicked puppy. She rolled her eyes at him. "Get our men over there; tell them I want this person alive. I want to know what they think they're doing, breaking into a top secret base."

"Yes, ma'am." The tech stammered and then began to speak to the agents through his radio.

"What's the situation?" Hill turned towards Romanoff and Barton as they hurried into the room.

"Someone broke in. We've got our men handling it. Fury didn't tell me that he was sending you in." Hill tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice; she was a competent enough leader, but it seemed that this week was intent on making her look like an idiot.

"We're just passing through, needed a place to crash before we moved on." Barton explained.

"Do you want us to handle the security breach?" Natasha added.

"Our guys have it handle-."

"Ma'am, our guys are down." Hill counted to ten her head and resisted the urge to punch that tech in the face.

"Want us to-?" Barton started.

"Yes!" She interrupted, angry already. Looking slightly amused, Barton and Natasha turned on their heels and ran through the door they'd come in by.

Jogging up a short flight of stairs, the former Hydra assassin was trying to remember any base that had even resembled the place she was going through now. She was coming up with a blank, but that didn't mean Hydra hadn't changed its design plans.

Rounding a corner, she had to duck back quickly at what she saw. It was too late; the two people coming down the hallway had spotted her and broken into a dead sprint; they obviously thought she was already moving. She slid down the wall until she was kneeling on the floor and only had to wait about a second before throwing her leg out. She tripped the man, giving him a kick in the face for good measure before jumping up to face the woman, who was more than ready for her with a punch to the throat. She stumbled back a couple steps, stunned, then angry. Natasha swung out, but missed as the other assassin ducked. She grabbed Natasha's arm, twisted it and rammed her knee into the small of Natasha's back. Using her arm and Natasha's stumble forward as leverage, the blonde easily threw her down the stairs. Natasha had barely hit the floor below before she was rolling and standing up again.

"Alright, Blondie. Let's go." Natasha encouraged. So-called Blondie's lips twitched up into a smirk. Before she could take a single step, a heavy body slammed into her from behind. She and Barton tumbled down the stairs, the edges of the steps hitting them in the worst possible places. Natasha rushed forward, knowing the blonde wasn't going to stay down for long. Blondie was already on her feet by the time Natasha reached for them, more than ready to block Natasha's hits and kicks, sending out a few well placed ones of her own.

Natasha hated retreating; it showed weakness and fear. But she had little choice. Barton was still groaning and getting to his feet and the blonde was more skilled than Natasha had given her credit for. So Natasha retreated, backing down the hallway. The blonde followed easily and their fight continued for several feet until Natasha, finally, saw an opening. She took it and landed a hit right in the blonde's gut. She doubled over ever so slightly, stunned momentarily. Natasha served her a roundhouse kick right to the head. The blonde fell onto the floor, then flip-kicked herself up. She was angry now and Natasha knew it. When someone got angry, they made mistakes. This blonde was no exception.

Natasha got in more hits. More kicks. A fist to the jaw sent the girl to the ground again and this time she didn't get back up right away. Barton was at Natasha's side in a second, aiming his bow at the blonde. She rolled over onto her stomach, spitting out blood.

"Nice, Nat." He told her.

"Thanks." She said breathlessly, resisting the urge to add a sarcastic 'for nothing'. She knew it would've have been nearly impossible to integrate himself into that fight. Fighting was a dance and three people couldn't fit into one dance.

She stared down at the blonde and had the urge to land a few blows on the girl while she was down, but that was generally looked down upon in SHIELD. She was down, she had a weapon pointed on her, now was not the time to be beating her to a bloody pulp. Still, Natasha studied her, considering the idea. She saw a flash of metal in the girl's hand.

"Move!" She pushed Barton aside as hard as she could and the knife sunk into her shoulder instead. She fell against the nearest wall, her hand flying up to the knife embedded in her flesh. Barton jumped up and shot his arrow. Blondie caught it, her gloved hand closing around the shaft an inch before the arrowhead would have gone into her face.

She held up the arrow and looked at him like he had lost his mind.

"This is the twenty-first century! What are you doing with a bow and arrow?" She demanded, annoyed. Barton swung his bow at her, hoping to hit her in the face. She side-stepped out of the way and kicked him on the backside, which was as insulting as it was painful. As he went down, he swung his leg out to trip her. She jumped over his leg easily, as if she'd expected that move. Which, she might've, Barton realized. She had some kind of training, something that reminded him of Natasha in a way.

Something small and silver flew past Barton's field of vision and hit the blonde in the shoulder. It was a disk, with an electrical charge to boot. Blondie hit the floor, stiff and then limp. Barton looked over at Natasha and then leapt into action, helping her to her feet.

He tapped his radio.

"Hill."

"Barton, report."

"We got her. Nat's injured, I'm taking her to the med-bay." He wasn't sure if that was what they actually called the small hospital room off from the lab, but it sounded good.

"I'll send some people to grab the girl."

"Oh, so you did have more guys?" Barton tried not to sound annoyed, but failed.

"If you two couldn't handle it…" Hill left it there; they were the best agents SHIELD had. Barton rolled his eyes as he helped Natasha stumble towards the med-bay.

"We handled it, alright, but an army would have been nice."

Natasha sat on the edge of the hospital-style bed, rolling her shoulders and then wincing. Barton sat on a chair in front of her, twirling an arrow around in his hand. The girl had done a number on her, whether she was willing to admit it or not. Barton, however, couldn't stop admitting it.

"That girl can fight." Barton finally stated the obvious. Natasha glared at him.

"I noticed." She gingerly touched the bandage on her shoulder; the doctor had prescribed rest and relaxation, but he obviously didn't know her. She was intent on getting into the interrogation room as soon as possible. She could tell already that that girl was going to be hard to get information out of. Hard, not impossible, if they let her take a crack at it.

Hill walked into the room, arms folded tightly across her chest. They both turned to look at her but she shook her head immediately.

"She hasn't said anything yet."

"I can make her talk-." Natasha started, getting off the bed. Hill held up a hand.

"We're going to leave her there for a while. Eventually, everyone gets claustrophobic and lonesome. She'll be more talkative if we leave her alone." She explained.

"A claustrophobic assassin searching for love. Just what we needed." Barton said dryly.

"Can't have too many assassins in this business." Neither of them could tell if Hill was joking or not and she changed the subject immediately, "The point is, she was looking for something."

"Doesn't this place house a lot of tech?" Natasha asked.

"Yeah, but I can't imagine how she would know about that. Sure, rumors spread about what's going on here. If she knew what she was looking for, she could have pieced together that we're running a base here, but I doubt she could have learned what we're keeping here."

"She's a little young to be an assassin." Barton put in.

"I was younger." Natasha told him quietly.

"We're running a DNA test now; see if she matched anyone we have in the system. With any luck, that'll give us some answers."

"Did she kill anyone?"

"No, but transferred some of our agents to a nearby hospital. They need some pretty extensive medical care." Barton didn't doubt it; his head was still throbbing and Natasha had a knife wound to prove the girl's danger level. Hill motioned towards the door.

"We collected her things, including the stuff she left right outside our perimeter. Would you like to see it?"

"Yes." Natasha said immediately, so Barton pushed himself to his feet and followed the ladies out to the lab. Sitting on a table was a backpack, with the stuff they'd found on her piled up against it. Natasha headed over and started sorting through the stuff, tossing it into another pile once she was done with it. Barton watched, noting each object she threw aside.

The jacket she'd been wearing, which landed with a clanking sound that told him there were knives in each and every pocket. The boots they took off her, combat-boots, naturally. In the backpack, there was a change of clothes, a large plastic bag full of food and a canteen of water. Natasha tossed each of the items aside and then reached back in. She pulled out a sword. Serrated edge, about two feet long; it could do some serious damage and Natasha didn't want to imagine it in the hand of its owner.

"The KGB didn't train us to fight with weapons like these. It was all guns and hand-to-hand." Natasha told them, tossing the empty backpack aside.

"So we can rule out the KGB?" Hill clarified. Natasha nodded.

"So there's someone else training kids to kill people. How comforting." Barton said sarcastically.

"She's not a kid." Natasha protested.

"She's what, eighteen, nineteen tops? In my mind, that's a kid."

"She's not a kid."

"I won't tell anyone you got beat up by a kid if you don't want-."

"Enough, both of you." Hill interrupted. They both fell silent, Natasha shooting a dirty look at Barton.

A lab tech came hurrying over, a tablet in hand. He looked like he lost some of his courage when he saw that Natasha and Hill were both angry, but he managed to walk up to them anyway. Hill crossed her arms and looked at him expectantly, hoping for good news.

"You won't believe this." He said excitedly, pushing his glasses up his nose with his free hand.

"What is it?" Hill demanded, in no mood for anything that didn't move this security threat case along.

"I put her DNA through the system, right? It didn't come up with a match for her, but it did come up with two partial matches."

"What do you mean, how is that possible?" Barton asked.

"Do you know how a paternity test works? It tests DNA and-."

"I'm sure we're all aware how that works. Can you get to the point?" Hill asked impatiently.

"Right, of course. Running her DNA through the system got us her parents."

"Her parents were in the system? Like, SHIELD agents?" Natasha demanded, staring at the stuff piled in front of her as if the backpack held all the answers in the universe. How could the daughter of SHIELD agents turn into some kind of assassin breaking into SHIELD facilities? She wondered. As she pondered the most probable options, she vaguely heard the lab tech say two names. Her head snapped up, echoing his words in shock.

"Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers?"

The disgraced assassin sat handcuffed to a table, which wasn't the most uncomfortable position she'd been in. The stinging headache, throbbing mouth and acute feeling of discomfort in the back of her neck weren't the worst she'd had either, so she ignored them. She stared at the one-way glass window in front of her, using it like a mirror as she examined herself. The red head had gotten her good; there was already a bruise forming on her jaw and… Is my skin always that pale? Her programming from Hydra was wearing off; she was able to get distracted again, which was more of a luxury than she'd ever realized before. My skin is definitely pale, she decided. They'd taken her jacket, and shoes, and the black of her tank top really set off her pale tone. Her thought process continued on that way for a moment, before she bowed her head to the table. With her handcuffed hands, she slipped the bobby-pin out of her hair and started picking the lock on her handcuffs.

She held up her hands to the one-way window, showing off that she was no longer handcuffed. When no one came rushing through the door to restrain her again, she figured no one was watching from the other side of the window. She stood up and tucked the bobby-pin back into place behind her ear. It didn't hold any hair back; that was the point, someone would have to be looking for it to take it from her.

She tried the door first, just for giggles. It was locked up tight, not even a keyhole she could get her bobby-pin into. She'd expected that. So, stooping down, she leisurely examined the table and chair. Neither one was bolted to the ground. Idiots, she thought, trying not to laugh. She picked up the chair, testing its weight. Metal, pretty heavy, probably to try and prevent someone from throwing it. She set it down on the floor again, took a breath and then picked it back up. She flung it against the window as hard as she could. It sailed right through the class, bouncing off the table behind it and falling to the floor with a clatter. She climbed over the ledge, ignoring the glass shards.

The door on the other side of the ledge wasn't locked, so she pushed it open and strode into the hallway.

"So what can we call you?" Hill asked from the far end of the hallway. Natasha and Barton flanked her, each heavily armed and looking angry, but also somewhat intrigued.

The blonde thought fast, remembering with a start that she didn't have a name. What had the Winter Soldier called her? His тень. She said it aloud, her Russian accent perfect.

"Uh… Nat?" Barton questioned, not taking his eyes off the girl.

"Shadow." Natasha translated, glaring.

"You speak English?" Hill questioned.

"Yeah. What's it to you?" She still had a hint of an accent, but it wasn't like she was stumbling through the English words either.

"Good." Hill glanced down at her tablet as if to reconfirm something she already knew. "Do you want to know what we learned about you?"

"I know all I need to know, but thanks." Shadow said dryly, hands clenched into fists at her sides. The floor was cold against her bare feet and the cold air from the vent above her was actually stinging her bare shoulders. They'd taken her stuff, which annoyed her to no end. She didn't have a lot, but the things she did have, she didn't like people touching.

"We ran a DNA test." Hill continued, like she didn't even care that she was facing an assassin. She watched Shadow's expression carefully. There was a flicker of curiosity, but that was gone as soon as it came.

"You took my blood without permission."

"Next time, keep your blood off our floors."

"Keep your floor away from my blood." She shot back without missing a beat.

"We found your parents. You want to know their names? Pretty important people." Hill mused, baiting her. A look of consideration flashed across Shadow's face but then it was gone. "You were an active missing person's case for decades, starting in 1948. Now, we can more about you once you talk to us about why you're here. Information for information."

There was dead silence in the hallway for a minute and, for a split second; Hill thought that Shadow might cooperate. Then the assassin was off and running the opposite direction. Hill cussed under her breath, but held up her arm to stop Natasha and Barton as they started to take chase.

"Let her go."

"Why?" Natasha growled, a murderous look in her eye.

"We put a tracker in her. She'll lead us right back to her base of operations."