A/N: Hey, guys! Sorry for the delay in updates. Feb as mentioned in the previous chapter has been crazy busy but I am back now and with that, another chapter! As promised, things will get interesting here as Katherine gets her perfectly manicured hands dirty.

Again, muchas gracias to my readers and reviewers (TheElegantFaerie, The Great Blond Balrog Slayer, Sonya, Alaee301)

And since some of you brought it, Katherine didn't tell them about the doppelganger curse simply because she's Katherine, there is no need to and the less they know, the more leverage she has!

On with the story!

Chapter 5

The car ride to Steve's apartment passed in silence with him staring out the window and Katherine preening and studying the 'bracelet' around her wrist. Tony's piece of work really was something considering it was a rush job. Running her finger along the silver material, she wondered if it really worked.

"So how long have you been doing this?"

She blinked, surprised that Steve had spoken first as she looked at him. "Doing what?"

"Being a walking demon encyclopaedia." he said, still looking at the passing scenery. "Doesn't strike me as the usual family business."

"Not too long actually." Katherine said hesitantly. How much could she reveal to him without compromising her true nature? "I… didn't choose this."

Steve looked at her in surprise. "You didn't?

Briefly, she contemplated telling him of a much younger Katherine who knew nothing of vampires and werewolves, a girl who still had her family. Just briefly. "Nope. Your boss dragged me into this when he heard of what I knew and who was after me. He assumed it was a fair trade. My knowledge of Klaus and his world for my safety."

"And do you think it's a fair trade?" Steve asked, concerned. He wasn't the least bit surprised that Fury had pulled that.

"Well, I have world's mightiest superheroes on my speed dial and the legendary Captain America as my personal bodyguard." Katherine said nonchalantly. "All in exchange for the information swirling about in my head. I'd say it's more than a fair deal."

"So…that bit in the Stork club." he continued with a small smile. "Was that for real or what? Are you really a history expert?"

She studied him for a while. "You're questioning whether I can catch you up, aren't you? Whether I can you get back into society."

He ducked his head, embarrassed that she read his intentions. "I am sorry. It's just that when Fury put you under my care, I thought that whole 'helping me' part was just a cover. You know, to ease me into the idea. Ever since I woke up, Fury has been treating me like I would have a mental breakdown or something." He gave a sardonic chuckle. "I just have to know."

Katherine, in her years of reading people so that she could manipulate them, could plainly see the pain and sadness in Steve's blue eyes. This was a man who lost everything including the life he was meant to live and the fact that he was aware of that made it worst. In a way, she could relate. She had watched everyone around her grow old and die while she continued to live on, untouched by time. Granted she couldn't careless about others but at least she had the opportunity to teach herself to adapt while Steve wasn't so lucky. Right now, she was torn between maintaining her distance emotionally and actually helping the guy.

Give him a break, she told herself. He's your bodyguard. Can't be a good one if he's all emo and stuff.

"Fury wasn't lying to you. I can help." she said. "I wouldn't know where to start but…Steve, if there's one thing I can good at, it's adapting and I'll teach you how and in time, you'll adapt to this society." For extra emphasis and really she didn't know why she did it, she added. "I promise."

Steve smiled in return and the grimness in his face seemed to vanish replaced by hopefulness that instantly made Katherine regret uttering that last bit.

Just about then, their driver pulled the car to a stop. "Mister Rogers, Miss Pierce, we are here."

The apartment seemed to take up the entire highest floor of the building and to say it was huge was an understatement. The entrance opened into a spacious living room that also led to the kitchen and two bedrooms. A staircase in a corner led to the second floor that overlooked the first floor where Steve explained was the personal training room which also led to an outdoor swimming pool.

Sorely, Katherine conceded it was even better than her hotel suite. It was decorated to mirror the elegance of a hotel but from the lack of mess, she felt as though no one really lived here. Standing in front of the ceiling to floor window, she could see Stark Towers not too far away.

"SHIELD certainly did not spare any expanses with you." she said. "But I don't understand why didn't you just stay with Stark? Isn't that building Avengers headquarters or something?"

Steve sighed as he hung up his jacket. "Because put all of us in one room for prolonged periods and one of us might end up a dead body by the end of it. My money is on Stark."

"Right." She turned to face him, allowing herself a brief moment to admire his physic as he strolled to the kitchen for a drink, his movements lithe for someone his size. "So how shall we start?"

"I don't know." he said, pulling out two bottles of water. "You're the teacher…ma'am."

Her eyes narrowed as he gave her a boyish grin and handed a bottle to her. "Lesson one, Cap. Don't. Call. Me. Ma'am. Ever."

"Yes, ma'am –I mean, Katherine."

Shooting another glare at him, Katherine began to pace. "Okay, first let's establish what you do know and what you don't. Where do you keep your computer or laptop?"

Steve shrugged helplessly. "Don't have one."

"What?"

"Stark tried to teach me how to use one and needless to say, that didn't go to well." Cap explained, grimacing at the memory. "He had me banned for life from ever going near a computer."

"Well, consider that ban lifted then." Katherine said. "We'll need to get a laptop first though…"

"What's the point?" Steve sat down. "I don't even know how to turn it on."

"Not for you. For me." she said, dropping into the sofa across him and elegantly crossing her legs in front of her. "I know my historical facts but I am going to need movies, music and all those stuffs to help you. Maybe we should start with the 1970s. The fashion and television culture then was quite…colourful. Literally."

Truth be told, she hated the 70s with their bell-bottomed pants, disco faze and Charlie's Angels madness. The hippie trend spoiled the blood banks and her food source then although they were fun to kill because they never knew what they faced until their last breath.

"Perhaps you could just tell me what happened after World War II ended." Steve suggested quietly, his eyes haunted. "Fury kept telling me that we won but he never once told me what we lost."

Katherine closed her eyes, allowing herself to be transported back to the time of war, a time she riveted in as she drained dying soldiers of their blood. She remembered gunshots, the scent of gunpowder and blood and the screams of men, children and women. "Then make yourself comfortable, Cap. We'll be here for a while."

~.~

"Sir, I was unable to find anything on Katherine Pierce."

Seated in his lab and hunched over an electrical circuit, Tony paused in his work and frowned. "Well, that's disappointing. You let me down, JARVIS."

"I've looked into every database in the world and while there has been many Katherine Pierce, none match the one you speak of." the AI said. If it had been human, JARVIS would have sounded annoyed.

Someone cleared her throat behind the inventor, making Tony look up. "Pepper."

"Tony, why are you having JARVIS look up a woman that is supposed to be helping SHIELD?" Pepper asked, narrowing her eyes at her boyfriend.

"Vampire." Tony automatically corrected her. "She's a vampire. And that's why."

"Doesn't matter." Pepper said. When Tony told her about the Avengers' new associate, she was mildly shocked but as a woman living with Tony Stark and a scientist with a severe case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde and with occasional visits from a super soldier, a demigod and two master assassins, nothing much surprised her now. "If she's a vampire, then she must know her stuff what being a hundred years old or so. If what she knows can keep you alive and can help Steve, then I am all for her being on the team."

"Yes, but I don't trust her…" something in Tony's mind clicked when her words sunk in. "The databases are outdated."

"Tony?" Pepper asked, well aware of his mind of flying ahead.

"Sir, I assure you that every database I have accessed to have been updated." JARVIS said.

"JARVIS, forget the database. Look back on record dating back to the 40s. Go through everything. Film clips, photos, newspapers clipping. Look under various alias with the basis of Katarina or Katrina. It's a very old name, possibly European. Start there." Tony said standing up and groaning from the stretch of his back muscles. He turned to Pepper who clearly was looking for an explanation. "Fury seems to think she can help the Cap. I believe Katherine has been around since the 1940s."

She blinked. "That is…"

"She looks hot for an over 70 year old." Tony muttered distractedly.

Smack!

"Ow!"

~.~

The sound of fists striking a sandbag rang through the two-storey apartment. The sandbag barely moved but the force behind the punches was evident as sand began to empty on to the floor from the tear between the cloths. Steve relished the sounds and the feel of his hands meeting contained sand at a rapid pace because it was consistent and calming. It burned the energy in his body, brought on by what Katherine had told him the previous day about the end of the war, after he went down in the plane.

"The United States and its allies lost twice as many men compared to the enemy."

Would it have made a difference if he had been there?

"Are you still brooding?"

Stopping the gentle sway of the bag with a hand, Steve looked up to find his guest leaning over the railings that condoned off the training area. She had changed into a more casual and loose attire while her long dark hair was pulled back into a braid that hung over a shoulder.

"You here to work out?"

Katherine made a face. "And get all sweaty? No thanks. I just had my shower." she revealed. "Nothing quite refreshes you like a good nap and a hot shower after. You should try it sometime."

Steve reddened slightly and lifted his fists once more.

As the hollow thuds picked up again, Katherine glanced at the clock, bored and realised it was almost ten in the morning. She has been struck indoors for a full day and she recalled she hasn't had a bite since the previous night before two certain Avengers broke into her hotel room. Fury had promised her blood supplies to keep her from attacking people and true enough she found hidden blood bags in her room. So far, SHIELD has failed to let her down.

I guess having a rising body count won't help, she thought as she appreciated the view of Steve going at the poor sandbag as though it were a Nazi.

After she explained to him how World War II affected society and the world, the Cap entered into a downward spiral of emotions which made her want to smack him. Katherine wasn't one for self-pity and she knew there was nothing he could have done, what with him being struck in ice. But she knew he wouldn't listen and the only way to make him feel better was to let him abuse the sandbag.

Men, she thought. Still, she supposed she could have ended up with worst as her bodyguard.

Tony would have driven her mad with his talking while Banner, although nice, still had a raging beast inside that did not like her own vampirism nature. Clint was pleasant enough but she suspected Natasha would have shot her just for looking at him one way. And speaking of the legendary Black Widow…

"I might need to beat some sense into her…" she muttered, unaware she had just said that aloud.

"Sorry?" the hitting stopped and Steve looked at her again.

She cursed his heightened hearing and straightened. "I am bored, Cap. Let's grab a bite."

"Alright." he said, panting slightly from the exertion. "Just give me a moment to wash up and I'll call the driver."

"Actually." she smiled. "I have a better idea."

~.~

Half an hour later, the looming skyscrapers of New York lined the streets as Katherine and Steve strolled along the walkway, a Subway sandwich in hand each. Ever since the Chitauri attack, Steve couldn't remembered the last time he was on the streets just for the heck of it as Katherine had put it. He has walked to Stark Towers on countless occasions but he never once stop to look up at the signboards or at the posters that decorated the street walls nor had he once listened to the radio and its music.

"So Radio Shack is actually not a shack with radios in it?"

"Well, no. They do have radios but they also have other things as well." Katherine said. "Mp3, iPods, handphones. If Stark wasn't so advanced, it would be his personal candy land."

Steve had to chuckle at that. "And that laptop you order, they will deliver it to the apartment? That's good customer service. And they can do that for everything?"

"Just about. Businesses need good customer relations. To strive in today's business world." she said in between bites. "It's no longer customers going to the stores but rather the stores going to the customers."

"And the Internet helps with this?" he asked curiously as he munched on his foot long sandwich. Sandwiches were something he was familiar with. Just good old bread with meat and greens stuffed in between.

"Yes." Katherine was pleased with how much Steve was taking in. She knew it was a good idea to teach him on the go. Showing him worked so much better than telling him. "Once we have the laptop up and running, I'll show you how. So don't worry your pretty little head over it."

"I am not!" he protested, flustering from her words.

"Hm." she looked around, noting the movie screenings currently. "So what strikes your fancy, Cap? Music? Movies? Ladies?"

He started at her crudeness. "Ladies?"

She grinned at his discomfort. "Yes, ladies. Women who…remove their clothes for money. Come on, Steve. I am sure you had your fair share of ladies in your days."

"Believe it or not, Katherine." he muttered, staring at the ground as they walked. "I wasn't always Captain America. Before the super serum, I was…just a scrawny kid from Brooklyn. Girls wouldn't even give me a second glance until Peggy came along."

"Peggy?" she frowned, looking up. That name sounded familiar. "Was she your girlfriend?"

"Um, no. Actually I don't know." he confessed. "We were supposed to have a date at the Stork club. Then I went down and… I don't even know if she turned up."

"Is that why you were at the Stork club?" Katherine asked. "To reminisce?"

"I guess."

She remembered now where she had heard that name. Some vampires were gifted with an unusually photographic memory and she could recall the woman whom she sat next to at the bar, chatting the night way. Too bad she couldn't tell him any of that. Oh well. "So have you looked her up, see if she's…you know, still alive?"

"She's in London." he answered. "I heard she has a granddaughter."

A family. That went unsaid between them.

"You should visit her." she said. "Talk to her. Steve, trust me on this. If I was given a chance to see someone from my past, someone I thought gone…I would."

Steve studied her from the corner of his eye, considered her words. Despite her age, she seemed…wise beyond her years as though she has seen things no one should. Not for first time, he wondered about her. "I'll…think about it."

"That's all I asking." she smiled before taking another bite of her sandwich. "So what shall we do now?"

Steve tilted his head at a poster of a movie titled 'Batman,' "How about a movie? I don't know about a man dressed a bat but I did star as Captain America back in the days."

She snickered at his ironic humour. "At least you're not running around in your underwear and a cape. Come on. Tickets are on, well, SHIELD."

Unaware by both as they headed into the cinema, a man watched the war hero and the woman under his care. Then maintaining his distance, he followed them into the darken hall and sat several rows directly behind them as the movie started.

He could tell that the man, the fabled Captain America was amazed by the visual graphics on screen and that the vampire was bored. That was good for him because it meant she would eventually leave for hall and the safety of the Captain.

Midway through the movie, she did, excusing herself for the toilet and when Steve offered to escort her, she waved him off and with purposeful strides, exited the cinema. The man counted to ten before he too followed suit.

Once outside, he discarded all secrecy and hurried after her, momentarily losing sight of her as she disappeared behind an exit door. He emerged into a side alley, looking around and found the alley, empty.

"Hello. Looking for me?"

He whirled around and found his throat locked in a bone-crushing grip. A strangled cry escaped him as Katherine slammed him into the wall, single-handedly pinning him there and leaving his legs to dangle helplessly a foot above ground.

Katherine glanced at the bracelet on her wrist, noting that it didn't go off. That could either mean that Tony's creation was faulty or this man who had been following her wasn't human even though he did smell close to one.

"We can do this the hard way or easy way." she said nonchalantly. "And believe me, you don't want to do it the hard way. Now tell me, who do you work for?"

"Do you think I'll give away information that easily?" he laughed, despite the crushing grip on his throat. "Try harder."

Her eyes narrowed although she smirked. "With pleasure." And thrusted her free hand into his chest, penetrating his ribcage with a sickening crack.

A choked scream escaped him but his breath was cut off completely from within as she curled a fist around a lung. Struggling for air, he gasped as she continued, seemingly mindless that her hand was in his chest, making soft squishy sounds as she moved it around.

"I know what you are. I got the memo." she muttered, remembering the body Fury had shown her of her attackers. "I wonder what would happen if I…"

She twisted her arm slightly and that elected a pained cry from the man, bringing a tinge of delight to her face. "Ah, look what I found. So you do have a heart. Fascinating. You look human but your insides are all over the place. Shall I pull them out and rearrange them so that they resemble the likeness of the human you pretend to be? Hm?"

His face was scrunched in pain but he still tried to draw in air to speak. "S-s-stop."

She cocked an eyebrow, indicating she was listening. "Tell me who sent you and maybe I won't kill you so quickly.

"H-her na-name is Amanda. And she has ordered your death in exchange for her assistance and…expertise."

"Amanda." Katherine's frown deepened in recognition of the name. "Still trying to get into Klaus's pants I see."

He wheezed. "No, not Klaus. She has turned her back on your kind. She now serves…Tha-Thanos."

That was an unfamiliar name. "And what does this Thanos want?"

He rasped through the pain, intoning in a voice of one who has been convinced of his mission objective. "To take over the planet earth by eradicating the humans and everything and everyone who opposes Thanos."

She stared at him hard and without warning, retracted her blood-drenched hand from his chest. He gasped in a mixture of pain and relief despite her other hand still wrapped around his throat.

"See, that wasn't so hard." Katherine said pleasantly. "But sadly you interrupted my date with a war hero so…,"

In a blink of an eye, she ripped out his heart leaving a gaping hole with blood spluttering across his front. He struggled to breathe, much to Katherine's surprise and amusement before his last breath escaped him with a tiny gasp, his body slumping against the dirty alley ground. She glanced at the warm heart in her hand, her bloodlust rising before deciding it was disgusting since it was an odd human-alien hybrid and allowed it to drop to the ground beside the dead body. She would probably have to call Fury later to clean up the mess but she knew he would be most appreciative of the information she has.

She headed back into the cinema, making a quick stop at the bathroom to wash her hands of the blood and bumped into Steve on the way out.

"Um, sorry." he muttered abashed. "You were missing the better part of the movie. I just thought to in check on you."

"I was only in the ladies, Cap. As you can see, I am perfectly fine." she said with a teasing smirk. "Say, how bout we ditch the movie and pay Tony a visit? I've been dying to check out his dig."

"His dig?"

A/n: See? Told you things will get interesting. Review yeah!

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www . bigblogexchange blog / 72003

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