Kendra passed by Steve on her way to the lab but they didn't say anything to each other. She simply nodded her thanks to him and he nodded back, acknowledging her thanks. He looked distracted, almost angry, and Kendra wondered what was wrong. She came up with several possibilities by the time she walked into the lab, one of which was that someone had burnt an American flag.
"Hello Mister Stark, Doctor Banner, are we making any progress?" Kendra asked the two men cheerfully.
"We're working diligently." Stark said, looking through a small silver bag for something. Kendra's eyebrows shot up when he pulled out a blueberry, grinned at it, and popped it in his mouth. "Perfect blueberry." He explained when he saw her expression. Kendra nodded slowly, still a bit confused as to why and how he had blueberries. "Anyways, we're running tests on the scepter and we're sweeping for the Tesseract's signature now." He said, pointing towards a piece of technology that Kendra had no clue how to use.
Kendra nodded again then smiled. "So, are you having fun yet?" She asked cheerfully.
Tony smirked slightly and grabbed a small handful of blueberries out of the bag. "It's been interesting but not fun yet. I'm sure something will happen soon though that'll change that." He said before popping the whole handful of berries into his mouth.
Kendra grinned and turned to Doctor Banner. Not surprisingly, Bruce had separated himself slightly from Tony and was typing something up on the only on a desk computer in the room. It was probably code or something. "What about you Doctor Banner?" She asked, hoping to get him talking.
Bruce looked up, startled by the fact that she was choosing to talk to him. Not overly startled though, she had been trying to talk to him earlier after all. "It's...not going as badly as I thought." He said carefully, thinking of how he had expected to be in a cage by then. Good thing his cage was occupied or else he probably would be working in there.
"Well, that's good I suppose." Kendra said, giving him a soft kind smile. He smiled back a little before going back to his work, picking up where he left up with ease. Kendra watched him for a second before she felt eyes burning into her back. She turned and saw Tony staring at her. "Yes Mister Stark?" She asked politely, smiling at him.
"When you said you had an obsession with sharp objects I thought you were just trying to be tough." Tony said, eyeing the many different weapons on the girl. Bruce peeked up over his glasses and took note of the weapons as well, a little unnerved by how many of them there were. A girl her age should not be that comfortable with that many weapons on her.
Kendra laughed at that. "My apologies Mister Stark but no. I'm an expert knife thrower and the weapons you see on me aren't even half of the ones I own." She said, shrugging nonchalantly like it was no big deal.
Bruce's eyebrows shot up but Tony just looked increasingly angry. "You've killed people haven't you?" Tony asked, his voice carefully measured so he wouldn't sound too mad.
Kendra winced slightly. She knew exactly how mad Tony was and it kind of hurt to be angering someone she admired. Plus, coming from him it seemed like such a bad thing. She knew it wasn't a bad thing though. The people she'd killed were horrible people, child traffickers and killers trying to start up world wars. She'd been proud to kill off those disgusting villainous people but hearing someone else outside of the agency talk about it... "Yes Mister Stark I have." Kendra answered calmly, not letting her voice betray her.
"You're sixteen." Tony said furiously.
"I am." Kendra said and nodded.
"You told me you weren't a child soldier." Bruce said, earning their attention.
Kendra nodded again, buying herself a bit of time so she could think of a good answer. "I'm not exactly a child, Doctor Banner. I'm nearly a legal adult." She said, trying to sound like an adult as she spoke. She didn't exactly pull it off though, sounding more like a slightly sassy teen more than a grown up.
Bruce frowned angrily. "You're still a child. You should be in school." He told her.
It was so much like the conversation Kendra and Steve had that the girl could barely stand it. She forced pain to become anger quickly, not wanting to cry again. "I'm sorry to inform you of this gentlemen but I chose to be trained by S.H.I.E.L.D. They were just going to provide me safety and a place for my brother to raise me but I wanted to help people. So I chose to be trained. I chose to kill." She told them, her voice hardened by only slightly held back anger.
"So they brainwashed you into thinking that killing was justified." Tony said, frowning deeply.
"No!" Kendra snapped, losing control for just a second. She winced, recognizing her mistake, but was still pissed off. She'd killed before S.H.I.E.L.D recruited her and her brother and the people she'd killed then...well they didn't all deserve it. S.H.I.E.L.D didn't have to brainwash her into killing. Kendra shut her eyes and started counting backwards from ten, breathing deeply as she did. "Look," she said once she was done counting, "I know S.H.I.E.L.D has its issues but I make sure my targets deserve death. On my first mission I killed a man who was trafficking women to be used as sex slaves. I killed him and a whole building of men to free hundreds of girls. So no, they didn't brainwash me. I find the killing completely and utterly justified. I'm fine with going to Hell to cause I save people and that's worth it." She said, keeping her eyes closed so she wouldn't see their expressions. "I'm leaving now. Just wanted to check in. Doctor Banner, you're an amazing scientist and once again I'm sorry you're stuck here. Mister Stark, you're awesome. Have a good day." Kendra said calmly. She turned around and walked out of the room, never meeting their eyes as she did.
Neither of the men spoke for a few minutes, watching the girl through the windows until they couldn't see her anymore. Finally Bruce decided to speak up. "I feel bad for her." He said, getting right to the point.
Tony nodded and walked over to the nearest hanging monitor. "I was given her file but it was vague. Said her and her brother lived on the streets for years and had 'prior experience before recruitment.' I just said the brainwash thing to see what she would say." He said, looking at the monitor with a slight bit of distaste. He was glad Agent Dagger hadn't noticed it, the program he was using to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D's system was displayed up on the monitor. He hoped up onto Bruce's work station, swinging the monitor around so that he could sit and look at it. "I think the Bartons might have killed prior to joining S.H.I.E.L.D. She would have said that the man was her first kill, not that she killed him on her first mission, if she hadn't killed before." Tony said.
"I wonder what her childhood must have been like." Bruce said, his eyebrows scrunched together in thought and concern.
"Horrible." Tony stated simply, nodding slightly. "Now, want to read S.H.I.E.L.D's top secret files with me?" He asked, pointing to the monitor and the program slowly hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D.
Bruce smiled slightly. "I suppose." He said, shrugging slightly. Tony grinned and they both turned to look at the monitor, watching as the code broke through S.H.I.E.L.D's firewalls.