Well, Fury didn't lie.

This mission was, so far, around twenty times worse than the Asgard one in terms of pain - but not emotional pain. Oh no, this time it was all physical. All Christie could think about through all the blood and the bruises was the beautifully rewarding pay check she had coming her way once this was finally over. Although the thought seemed shallow, it certainly helped matters as she found herself being shoved into a stiff metal chair and punched roughly in the mouth repeatedly. Her gums immediately spurted with the warm metallic taste of blood and her head felt extremely heavy. "Sh*t," she groaned, cupping her jaw tenderly. "I think you bastards just broke my jaw - can that be added to my ever-growing list of negligence charges against S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"Hands away from your face, Darmer," Pierce ordered, signalling the guard to press the barrel of his fully loaded pistol to the Christie's throbbing temple. She clenched her teeth and breathed out slowly through her nose, trying her hardest not to start shaking from the amount of excruciating pain that was now filling her face.

She should've just taken those two weeks off and left this one to Romanoff.

"You cannot be f*cking serious right now!" she spluttered, already struggling with the amount of blood starting to muffle her words. "What do you morons think I'm actually doing here? With Pierce, of all people?! I've always been a bit of a freelancer when it comes to S.H.I.E.L.D, it's not like I took a pledge - so why don't you relax with the slaps and hear me out-" Ignoring her words, the guards slapped her again across her face, and that one definitely did some serious damage to her jaw. One even whipped out a small sharp blade and held it up against the bare pale skin of her neck, and the sharpness of it was making her neck quiver slightly.

But Christie kept her cool.

"Right. Now you're pissing me off, so regardless of what you decide to do with me after this, Pierce - I will be killing your buddies here when I'm out of this hold. Particularly this un-aesthetically pleasing one with the knife, because damn. You can't be ugly and hard of hearing - you gotta pick a bloody struggle, mate."

"Shut the hell up. I'd like to see you try, b*tch," the guard sneered as he tightened his grip on her.

"Oooh is that a threat, big boy?" Christie whispered, throwing him a light wink to get on his nerves just that little bit more. She was somewhat enjoying this part. She knew that Pierce was stressed enough as it was, because he continued to pace up and down in front of them, deep in thought on everything that had taken place in the last thirty minutes. He knew full well that this girl could be of good value to him, and he also knew that she was the closest to Fury that he could get to. That was raising alarm bells as it was. Christie held valuable information on S.H.I.E.L.D that Pierce otherwise couldn't obtain that easily, particularly on Fury. Yes, he may have been the general overseer, but he knew that Fury trusted her more than he'd ever trust him - and it would be ridiculous to even let her go back to him, especially now that it was obvious she knew who Pierce was. How that had even happened, he had no idea.

But the entire situation seemed too good to be true to just 'let her join'. So far, he didn't trust her for love nor money. But if he let her go and she decided to reveal anything, he'd be dead within moments and the entire project would go under. So right now he was faced with the ultimatum of either killing her, or trusting her.

"How can I trust you?" Pierce ended up asking her darkly. Christie bit down on her jaw.

This was when she needed to drop the sassiness and tread extremely carefully.

"I don't know, dude. Take your best guess. Fury thinks I'm still working for him – and I might physically be in it, but my heart is not. Hail HYDRA and all that. Dunno what more you want from me - how did you end up trusting anyone else two timing S.H.I.E.L.D? I know there's a sh*t-ton of you working-"

"I still don't believe you," Pierce muttered, getting even closer to her face. Christie rolled her eyes and flung her head back in an attempt to prevent the thick blood from her broken nose from running into her mouth.

"I'm seeing that, pal. Like I said, I know that there are undercover HYDRA agents floating about within the place - how do you think I knew exactly who to come to? Did you just think I was that good? As much as that's a compliment," she pointed out.

That was all a lie. She didn't know that for sure - she was taking a wild guess based on what Fury had told her, and prayed to God that it paid off. But luckily for her, Pierce seemed to be buying it.

"What I really want is to see S.H.I.E.L.D burn. HYDRA has been my code from the beginning, it's literally in my blood. You know, the blood that is currently in my MOUTH?" she gurgled out messily as the blood dribbled everywhere. The guard shoved her head forward again, absolutely sick of her attitude, and she spat the blood into her lap to clear her mouth.

"What?" Pierce suddenly froze at her words.

"Listen, if you let me fix my jaw I'll be able to explain," Christie whispered as she continued to wince in the scorching pain soaring through her upper body. Pierce frowned and quickly waved his hand toward the guards so that they finally backed off, allowing Christie to cup her chin tenderly, take a few short breaths and swiftly crack her jaw back into place. She sprayed the remaining blood out in front of Pierce, splattering it all over his sharp suit. "Ugh, much better," Christie breathed out in mock-relief. "You got a little…something…on your suit, by the way." Pierce was definitely getting agitated at this point – she was truly testing his patience but honestly, Christie was enjoying every second of it. Getting on people's nerves was exciting for her.

A bit like Loki, actually-

"Right, now where were we? Oh yeah! My parents used to work for HYDRA. They literally lost their life for you guys. Died on the job. All I want to do is make them proud and carry on their legacy. Is that now allowed? I probably have more historical credibility than anyone else in this new makeshift organisation of yours."

"Your parents being whom?" Pierce muttered, picking up a small round metal ball and throwing it into the air. Christie held her breath as she watched it expand into a large holographic database.

This was the bit that she needed to work.

"Anastasia Klovinksy and Robert Vatuska," Christie muttered. The A.I of the hologram recognised the names and searched their files for a match. Christie's eyes fluttered shut and she immediately began praying that Fury's plan had worked, that S.H.I.E.L.D had properly done their research this time.

Five or so seconds later, there was a sharp pinging sound and Christie cracked one eye open, noticing that they had found a match and trying not to let out a sigh of relief. And right there, staring back at her was her own picture underneath the name 'Kriztina Klovinsky'. "Now how about that," she murmured to herself before her eyes floated over to Pierce's once again. "Hi, Kriztina K, that's me. Christie…Kriztina…ya get it?"

"You're…you're really Anastasia's daughter…?" Pierce murmured out.

"I'm actually pretty surprised you didn't recognise me after all that happened between you two. She'd be incredibly disappointed. Yes, I know about the affair, mein papa was heartbroken thanks to you, Alexander," Christie spat with a knowing risen eyebrow, now feeling ten times more confident that she did in those last few minutes. It was obvious that the cover story was legit and it had worked - she was incredibly thankful for that at least. "Now I need you to make up your mind. If you're agreeing to keep me here, I need to know now. If not, I've got a few of you to kill here and then a plane to catch back home and I'll work on pulling S.H.I.E.L.D. down alone, because they deserve to pay for the pain my parents endured. Either way, I think I've made my point, so figure it out and fast."

Pierce was now incredibly sick of her attitude, so he signalled for his guards to slap her again - but Christie got there before he could. She swiftly raised her legs, using them to grab a hold of the neck of one of the guards before forcing them down violently so that his chin made contact with the edge of the metal chair and snapped his neck - an instant kill. She then raised her arms and grabbed the infamous HYDRA branding stamp on the dentist-like tray next to her. She took a deep breath and imprinted herself sharply on the hip as Pierce just watched on silently. Christie gasped, reeled and gagged in pain as her flesh took the burnt form of HYDRA's print, before chucking the stamp back down on the floor. "Ta daaa," she panted weakly.

"Well, you've just stupidly branded yourself into a terrorist organisation so congratulations if the government ever catch you. But don't leave S.H.I.E.L.D just yet - we need your eyes and ears," Pierce told her quietly, walking up to Christie and looking her dead in the eye before a handful more armed HYDRA soldiers burst in and dragged her away.