Natasha didn't know what would kill her first-the mutant they were after or the stench of the 7 other men in the plane with her. The heat coming off in their general direction itself was nauseating. She also did not know whether Clint was laughing at the plastered look of disgust on her face or whether he was laughing at the fact that they were stuck on this plane for the next hour or so.

She assumed it was probably both.

She couldn't laugh about this. She had seen the mission reports-all of the failed mission reports. It was a suicide mission. Captain America or not, there would be casualties. She knew these men. They had families; they had emotional ties to the outside world. Fury had tried to pick the best men, but they were already dead. This 'mutant', as they called her, had ripped them apart so easily.

How did they know it was a mutant? How could they even figure out its gender? Were the field agents that were slaughtered scientists too? Were they able to make notes as the monster ripped out their intestines?

She supposed, deep down, that's what concerned her the most; how little they knew of this thing. It vexed her. She did not enjoy being vexed, especially when her life depended on it. Then again, this way she would be far more vigilant-not that she needed to be with Agent Barton at her back. Even though the jovial and arrogant man was reliable she was annoyed at how little in his life he took seriously. Another thing that vexed her, one might say.

Clint would say that there were many things that vexed her: stupid people, politicians, the spectrum of human emotion, puppies, himself, Tony Stark, love songs, happy people, sad people, stupid people, people in general, aliens, being stuck in a small space with a bunchy of sweaty men, not being allowed to use the cure as a weapon and flying into a storm on the way to a suicide mission.

Clint laughed out loud when she swore at the sight of lightning crackling across the sky. The rain pelted loudly against the fuselage of the plane and Agent Romanoff heard rather than saw the agents behind her perk their heads up in fear.

"Stay calm, boys," the Captain reassured, "It's just a bit of lightning. Agent Barton, how far are we from the drop point?"

"Satellite images place the mark about 2 miles off-centre of the forest. We're landing just north of that in 3 minutes," he replied calmly. She knew he must also be worrying about this mission, but he would be damned if he'd let anyone see it.

They landed quickly and Natasha growled to herself again when she remembered that she wasn't allowed to use the mutant cure as a weapon. SHIELD geneticists needed 'her' mutated DNA to decipher Erksine's formula and forever changing said DNA would sort of defeat the purpose of the entire mission.

She walked out of the plane and puffed out her chest in anger at the sheets of ice cold rain that drenched her body in seconds. Not even the fact that Barton was armed with tranquilizers strong enough to take down the Hulk (if it could pierce his skin) brightened her sour mood.

The image that lay ahead of Captain America was ominous, yet nostalgic. The tall trees were so tall he could barely see the tops of them. Everything was dark and he could see shadows dancing within the forest as the lightning lit up the sky.

Very ominous.

It reminded him of all the forest he had been in whilst fighting HYDRA. If he'd seen one deep dark forest, he'd seen them all; at least that's what he was telling himself. No one could deny that this mission would be like nothing he'd ever faced. Steve Rogers was still trying to get his head around the idea of 'mutants'. He was sure that they were around way back when, but he'd never heard of them until he woke up.

From what he understood, mutants were just people, except they had abilities that normal people didn't have. Like him-except that he was an experiment. He read somewhere that their abilities tended to manifest at times of high stress-like a sort of fight or flight instinct-which made sense to him. He could also understand why normal people were so afraid of them. Some of these mutants had incredible power and in some cases uncontrollable power. They were young and corruptible. Or their mutations would change them into some kind of animal-like Hank McCoy. Steve had seen him on the news a lot.

That's where Steve became confused. Hank McCoy, or Beast, looked like something out of a monster movie, but he was also incredibly intelligent. Steve just wanted to know what made a mutant with such an extreme mutation either turn out like Hank, a gentle giant, or an untameable monster, like the 'girl' they were going after.

Or at least that was what the general consensus on her: some wild animal. Steve had read all the reports, including the first sighting. If she was such a wild animal, then why did she only go after the Nazi soldiers? Why did she let some of the men live, when she could have easily ended their lives? No one so far had been able to answer him, and it nagged at his moral code. This mutant had been human once. Somewhere deep down he knew that 'she' was still human. But he seemed the only one on the plane who thought that way.

The woods were lovely, dark and deep. He shook his head as if to clear it. Now was not the time to be thinking of poems he barely remembered form high school. He watched the soldiers file out of the two planes and form two lines, weapons armed and loaded. They were looking for revenge. He could see it in their eyes.

"Okay, men, let's move," Captain Rogers called out across the lines, "And remember, do not attack first, do not provoke the mark."

They walked forward and into the forest on high alert. He knew that whatever was in the forest would be able to hear them, hear their frantic heartbeats, smell their fear. For a moment he wondered if she might try to run for it; leave the forest and never look back. But somehow he doubted it. She had a thousand chances to leave, but she hadn't. This was her home, and her home was being invaded. There would be casualties.

He looked around him, feeling his paranoia grate against his exposed nerves at every rustle of a leaf, every footfall of the men around him, every glimpse of something among the trees. He was jumpy and he couldn't shake it off. This was not like the war where all he had to fight were men who were evil through and through, human men. He was jumpy because she was something else. She was something more, and these men around him didn't realise that. They were out for blood and if he couldn't stop them, the only blood spilt would be their own.

They walked for two hours without finding anything. They walked for another three hours and didn't find anything. In the next hour they finally decided to go to the heart of the forest, to the creature's lair as it were. Natasha noted a fair amount of bear traps lying about, as if the villagers nearby thought they might hurt or weaken the mutant.

"Watch out for the traps, boys," she said loudly. It obviously wasn't loud enough as she saw Barton pull one man's foot out of a trap as it clamped shut. The man looked up at the Black Widow and looked away from her patronising glare.

She hated stupid people.

A strange peaceful had settled across the men as they walked for the hours before. That calm was shattered when something in the trees above them screeched out. In seconds they all drew their weapons and aimed at different spots in the canopy above them.

Natasha remained calm and walked over a bear trap to look up to see where the noise had come from. The thing screeched again, but it seemed to be coming from all around them. It was too dark to see what was up there.

"Barton, light up a flare," the Captain instructed and they watched as the archer sent a flaming arrow up into the sky and explode like a firework to shine a bright red light across them.

Natasha was the first person to spot the mutant. It was up in one of the trees in what looked like a make-shift tree house. It was wearing a ripped white dress that looked like it belonged in a hospital. She saw the wicked black tail move slowly like a cat's as the mutant stared at the flare in wonder. Had the creature ever seen such a thing in her life in this forest?

Steve Rogers had never seen anything like it. She was exactly as the Private Stevenson had described. The large wings, the long tail, black skin covering her entire body. She seemed older now- she looked nothing like a child. Her black hair nearly reached her knees and long claws stretched out from her fingers.

"Everyone, do not attack," he reminded the jittery men. His voice caught her attention. She looked down at them all, glared at each one of them as the light slowly faded away. Her gaze landed on one particular man as the skies went black again.

The mutant cried out again and when Agent Barton shot off another flare, she was gone from the tree house. The one man who had felt her gaze still on him snapped his head around every time she screeched.

"I think she's trying to speak," Natasha said suddenly. The Captain looked at her strangely. "I don't know, Agent Romanoff, it sounds like a lot of shouting to me."

"It's probably been shouting for the last 70 years, Captain, even you would lose your voice after that amount of time."

She cried out again, and she wondered why they could not hear her. Why could they not understand what she said?

"Gehen sie weg!" she screeched at them. Their heads spun this way and that, trying to see where she was. The flying flame was strange, and it glowed bright and hot. She could smell the fear of the people on the forest floor-but she recognized the one in many colours. In red, white and blue. The colours were familiar, like an old picture from very long ago.

"Gehen sie weg!" she cried out again and one of the men seemed to have spotted her. He jumped when he saw how close she was and shot at her. She yelped in pain when the bullet became embedded in her collar bone. That's when the other men started shooting as well. She screamed out and tried to avoid all the fast moving things that these different people shot at her.

The bullets hurt and the darts stung. It made her cry. They didn't see her tears.

Maybe because they were men they didn't hear her crying. Perhaps the woman would. She jumped towards the red-headed lady and cried out in anguish when an arrow found its way into her back. The woman she had gone towards fell back and landed in one of the stupid metal traps the villagers had laid out to scare away tourists. The villagers understood.

Natasha screamed out as the metal clamps trapped her calf and felt incredibly stupid for being so easily startled by the mutant. If she made it out of this alive, which she highly doubted, Barton would never let her hear the end of it. Of course, for the moment, she had far greater problems as the creature ran towards her again, cutting the chain of the bear trap that connected it to the forest floor and picked up the bear trap in her talons, SHIELD agent and all.

The Black Widow tried to concentrate through the pain but she could only barely register that she was in the air now being flown towards a different part of the forest and away from the other SHIELD operatives. The last thing she heard was the Captain yelling at the jumpy soldiers.

"I told you to hold your fire! Not to attack first! What happened?" he shouted angrily, but he understood what had happened. They had gotten jumpy and the rumours surrounding this thing didn't help. They were like a bunch of superstitious school girls. And now this thing was angry and had taken Natasha for unknown reasons.

"Don't worry, Cap," Barton said emotionlessly, "Natasha has a tracking device on her. We'll be able to find her and hopefully the tranq I hit the creature with will slow it down some."

The Captain nodded. They made their way back to plane and decided that it would be best if only Captain Rogers and Agent Barton went to find Agent Romanoff. That way there would be a less likely chance of the mutant killing the skilled assassin out of animalistic rage.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

There were many places to hide in the deep dark woods. Many places that no one could find her. She brought the woman to one of those places, on the far side of the woods, far away from the people and the village.

She'd dug a hole in the face a small mountain at the edges of the forest. When she wanted to hide from everyone she would roll a large rock over the entrance and sleep for a time. She never knew how she would sleep for, but she would wake up and everything was so different.

She landed in her spot and placed the unconscious woman on the ground. The woman was bleeding from her leg and she wasn't moving. She wondered what the strange woman's name was, where she was from. Was she German? Or was she like the other men long ago, the good men, the ones that didn't attack her? What was her name?

What was her name? She didn't know her own name. She had one once. It was a pretty name. It was an angel's name. She was an angel. She wasn't an angel anymore. The bad woman at the bad place, she changed her. That bad woman doctor. That evil doctor, they poked at her, they hurt her, they made her something else. She wasn't an angel anymore. She heard what the people called her. Teufel, they called her, Devil.

Now her name was Devil. So she became Devil.

But what was this woman's name? She was so strange. Strange but beautiful. Her hair was short and red. So red, red like the bright light her comrades had shot into the sky, red like a hot fire. Red like warmth.

Devil scrounged around her little home to find a pail of water and used the end of her dirty dress to clean off the blood. Red like blood, like bloody beds and sheets, white sheets over dead bodies, dead bodies covered in blood, blood red like a fire. A fire burning hot, scorching, blackening, burning, pain, so much pain, so many scars.

Scars never healed.

What was so important about a name? Did a name make a person? Did it decide their fate? Would a pretty name make her a pretty person? Would and angel's name make her an angel? She would like to be an angel. Angels were beautiful beings, so pure and clean and white. White like snow, snow was so cold, so cold like the ice and the water. She couldn't breathe in the water; she couldn't breathe in the cold.

Devil had a tail. It was strange to have a tail at first. No one else had a tail, not like hers. Her tail was sharp and it could do things, it had poison in it, it put people to sleep and it hurt them like she was hurt, it healed people and it killed people and it brought people back to life. Maybe she was an angel? She didn't know. People didn't treat her like an angel.

She held the end of her tail over the woman's leg and let two drops of her healing poison drip onto it and watched the large gashes vanish as if it never happened. Her skin was clean and pale and Devil saw her own hands. They were black and sharp. Angels weren't black, angels didn't have tails. Angels were beautiful and warm. She wasn't warm, she was cold. She was always so cold.

She sat and stared at the warm beautiful woman. Maybe she was an angel. Devil felt sleepy and sore. The bullets still stung and she could feel something flowing through her body, making her sleepy. Maybe it was one of the bullets, or the man with the arrow?

She didn't know, she was just tired. She was scared to sleep. Whenever she slept, she'd wake up and everything would be different. She was scared to wake up. She was scared to go out. She was scared. Devil was scared. And people were scared of Devil.

Devil stared at the sleeping red-headed woman for hours until she could no longer stop the sleep that was taking over her body. She slumped against the side of the cave and felt her eyelids close on their own accord. She felt her wings fold and shrivel into her back, and her talons turn back to feet. Her breathing evened out and she fell asleep as Natasha woke to watch Devil's skin turn a pale pink colour and her hair turn a chocolate brown.

Agent Romanoff didn't move until she was certain that the mutant was fast asleep. As soon as Clint arrived she would give him a big kiss for hitting this thing before it flew off with her, and then punch him when he tried to go for more.

She looked down at her leg and saw nothing. There was nothing there; no scratches, no blood, no bear trap around her leg. The only logical assumption was that this mutant had something to do with it. She found it hard for a moment to imagine the thing that had killed six SHIELD agents was capable of such charity. Of course it was easier to imagine now that she resembled a 19 year old woman rather than some hideous monster.

19. How was that even possible? If this was the mutant from the 1940's then she should be an old woman by now-but no, this girl looked young and peaceful as she slept. She looked human, and it unsettled Natasha Romanoff. She knew how people described the Black Widow: a woman so beautiful yet capable of such destruction.

She got up slowly and noted that she had no movement in her once injured leg. Whatever the young looking woman had done, it numbed the area before healing it. She was in a dry cave, somewhere high up. There was an updraft coming in from the mouth of the cave and she edged towards it, trying to see where they were.

It was immediately obvious that yes, they were rather high up. It looked to be at least a 3 storey drop to death. It was also immediately obvious that there were not one, but two SHIELD jet planes in the immediate vicinity. One at the foot of the forest floor, and one in the sky, with a cable hanging 20 feet below and 2 feet from the lip of the cave. A very smug looking Hawkeye hung off the end of it and walked into the cave as if it was a normal day.

"So did the tranquiliser work?" he asked and walked forward to attach a harness to her body. He looked up at her and saw that she was staring pointedly at the other side of the small cave at the girl sleeping against the wall.

"Is that-?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"The Captain-?"

"He's scaling the mountainside as we speak."

He signalled to the pilot and watched Natasha get flown away for the second time that day, except on better circumstances this time. He turned and sat on his haunches to study the unconscious girl as he waited for Captain Rogers to arrive.

Technically all they needed was her blood, which would be easy to take in her current state. When she woke up they would all be gone, and no one would ever bother her again. She'd be completely alone for the rest of her life, like she had been since the 40's. Who knew how long she could live for? Maybe she'd outlive everyone? He heard the Captain enter the cave, but he was just starting to notices the tips of her fingers and toes were tinged blue and purple, like the beginnings of frostbite.

"Not quite the monster everyone says she is," Captain Rogers whispered. He, much like Barton, couldn't help but notice the small faded scars that littered her arms and neck. He saw the frostbite and he saw her shiver. He looked around the cave and saw that the girl had made herself a home here. There was a ratty old blanket in one corner and a broken tea set next to. He even saw an old broken gas light.

He walked past Agent Barton to grab the blanket and wrapped the young girl in it and picked her up in his arms.

"You okay to take her back down, Cap'?" Clint asked as he gripped the cable that had been lowered yet again.

"It's easier going downhill," he replied simply and began going down. The mountain wasn't too steep and the girl wasn't that heavy. She was just a girl. He had been sent out to capture a teenager. He could feel his ire by the second. This couldn't possibly be the creature from the first sighting, this little thing in his arms. How could it be? And even if she was, then what had Erksine done to her to make her this way? Had she been another failed experiment like Schmidt?

It only took him 15 minutes to climb down the mountainside, and none of the men on board the aircraft questioned him when he laid the girl across three seats and stood over her like a watch dog. It was as if he thought they were stupid enough to act out their revenge with him in the room. Better safe than sorry, his mother always said.

Captain America had never been so angry before. Not even when he first met Tony Stark and that guy was an asshole. He was certain that no one could have predicted that this mutant they were after could be so young, so he had no right to be angry. The logic didn't matter, he was furious, and he was going to blame someone soon. He silently dared anyone of the men to even look at the girl sideways-they would be his scapegoat.

It was possible that this trip back to HQ would feel even longer than the one to this godforsaken forest.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thought I was going to write more, didn't you? Nup. Loki'd, all that jazz. Anywho, tell me what you thought, review-FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SAY SOMETHING! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU THINK! AM I DOING THIS SIMPLY FOR MYSELF? Yes, I think I am. Oh well. Ahahaha. Ehehe.

I've had a lot of sugar and little sleep.

TOODLesszzzzzzzzz