Once Christie had dropped James back off at HYDRA's new base, Pierce demanded that she spend a while back at S.H.I.E.L.D to gather intel. But after only a week away, much to her dismay, she was called back in, yet again, to carry on with the experimental project.
They claimed they had 'worked out the bugs'.
So she scanned her pass to open the lab door - but as soon as she stepped in, she could already tell that they had done something bad. The atmosphere was much worse than before, everyone was ten times more robotic. No one even bothered to pay any attention to her. There were mechanical instruments scattered around everywhere, nothing was tidy - in fact, it was pure carnage.
And there, strapped helplessly to a table, was James.
Attractive he still was, but his face had such a blank and dead expression that it was almost disturbing to look at. His eyes worriedly scanned over the room as if he could tell that someone new had come in. "Agent Klovinsky," one of the female HYDRA scientists called her over, "we need you go and tighten the experiment's straps before the next wave." Christie bit down on her jaw, a little uncertain of her orders, but nodded. She skidded across the floor to where James lay on the table, and his eyes finally focussed on her. His head was pounding and he could barely remember how to string a few words together - but he still remembered who she was, and Christie could tell, because his panicked expression dissolved into one of relief.
"C-Christie, where the hell have you been?" he panted, his eyes boring into hers as she tugged on the straps over his arms tightly.
"They sent me away for a bit," Christie mumbled back, yanking them even tighter and trying to ignore his winces.
"Away like where?" he frowned quietly whilst trying to take his mind off the pain.
"S.H.I.E.L.D," Christie whispered. She noticed James was shaking in short, sharp shivers at a time. 'Sh*t. They've already done something to him,' she thought to herself.
"S.H.I.E.L.D? What's that?"
Christie suddenly froze, looking dead into his eyes.
"You…you can't remember?"
"Remember what?" James now looked increasingly scared. "Have you told me before? Did you tell me about it before? I'm sorry-" Christie felt her stomach churn and her skin grew pale. She wanted to be sick.
"Y-yeah I told you, we spoke about it in my apartment before remember? James, can you remember anything?" she looked horrified as the realisation slowly sunk into her mind.
"I can…I can only remember you; I kissed you, right?" James began to full on panic, now squirming under the restrictive gear.
"Agent Klovinsky?" the same young girl asked from somewhere behind her. "Are you done?"
"What the hell have you done to him?" Christie hissed to her, taking a few steps back so that she could come and finish tightening the straps instead.
"Just some simple shock therapy, nothing too major," the girl answered distractedly as she bustled around to the other side of the table to do the other arm.
"Simple? What's the more advanced version?" Christie murmured as she felt her heart continued to plunge. The young girl turned to her with a very dire look on her face, as if she also felt bad.
"That's stage four - AKA what we're about to complete now. So it's time to go back to your station, Agent."
"Stage four? What does that even mean? Will that hurt him?" Christie felt that wretched ball of nerves begin to grow in her pits of her stomach again as she was gently but firmly pushed back.
"We will try not to," the girl lied, sensing that she was starting to freak out. "It just means he won't remember anything leading up to this point in time, that's all. Like…a clean slate!"
"Anything? Define anything," Christie begged, now struggling against the pair of hands pushing her back.
Before she could use all her strength to properly retaliate, her mind took her back to another place.
A place where she was being held back again, when she watched the love of her life hang on to a stick – a stick that would determine his fate on Asgard or his fate in one of the many universes down below. This was the trigger and suddenly, the tears wouldn't stop. They had sprung out of nowhere and most of the scientists were looking at her in confusion. James saw these tears, and something that he was holding onto inside of him just broke; it shattered. He didn't know why she was crying as she was hurriedly pushed out the room, and obviously he didn't remember anything she told him about her past so he assumed the tears were for him. After all, the only thing he remembered was that she clearly meant a lot to him.
She was disappearing, they were taking her away and he just had to tell her that it was going to be alright.
"H-hey! Everything will be okay!" he blurted out to her with a shout just as she was finally thrown out of the lab, the door slamming behind her. She leant against the metal door, the tears still streaming out of her eyes and her breathing rigid, not slowing down no matter how much she tried. Through the door she heard a muffled yell of agony - which subsequently made her vomit, right there and then all over the hallway floor. She was shivering, the walls were closing in on her again and she felt like her legs were about to give way at any moment-
"Woah!" came a concerned voice as a pair of strong arms held Christie still.
She didn't appreciate that.
Her initial reaction was to twist this fool around by his wrists and pin him against the wall, but she knew that would make her look even dodgier than she probably already did - so she stiffly let him hold her until she was finally able to stand on her own again. She turned around to see who her 'saviour' was. He happened to be a reasonably handsome guy in a white doctor's coat, grinning down at her with his brilliant white teeth. His hair was a dirty blonde and was swept across his forehead, and his jaw was ridiculously sharp – he was almost too pretty for Christie, with these pretty deep blue eyes that actually glittered in the harsh white hallway light.
Fair to say - he wasn't her type at all.
"Thank you," she muttered a little coldly, finally wriggling out of his grip and trying to side step the vomit on the floor.
But this man clearly wasn't done yet.
"I'm Axel," he introduced himself smoothly, holding out his hand as he jogged behind her to try and keep up.
"Nice to meet you," was Christie's only reply as she blindly stumbled ahead, swiftly ignoring his outstretched hand. She briefly noticed a ghastly hexagonal chunky ring on the ring finger, and the sight of it alone almost made her vomit again.
"Agent Klovinsky, right?" Christie didn't respond, she just carried on walking. She literally had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from saying something unpleasant. "Hey, I don't blame you for coming out and spewing everywhere, it can a bit hard to stomach. I mean, you should've seen me on my first day!" Christie rolled her eyes, cringing to herself as this dude tried everything within his power to relate to her. He just wasn't getting the point. Within seconds she had reached her cabin, and just wanted to go and lie down - but he was still there.
"Look Axel, thank you for your help back there but I'm fine now, so you can go. I'll see you some other time," Christie politely let him down, opening her bunker door and shutting it once she was inside without waiting for a reply. Once she was sure he had disappeared, Christie let out a heavy sigh and collapsed on her bed, trying to figure out why she had just experienced such a traumatic breakdown. She had never felt something so odd in her life. That used to be what she specialised in – she was able to witnesses torture and pain without feeling a thing. That was her skill - this is why she was so good at being an assassin.
So what changed?
Christie brought the scratchy pillow up to her chest and hugged it close to her body, when there was a rapid knock at the door. She hopped up to swing it open - just to see Pierce standing there expectantly with a piece of paper held up in his hand.
"Klovinsky. We've finally sourced Fury's home address and we need to make sure that it's the right one so we can deliver the final blow. We're short on time," he gave her a small smile, his eyes dancing with excitement. Christie glanced at the paper he was holding out to her and rolled her eyes slightly as she recognised Steve's temporary Washington address.
How could they get it so wrong?
"Fury d-"
But then she thought about what she was saying - how could she be so stupid?
"Yeah, it's his address but he doesn't reside there all the time," she nodded confidently. Then she came up with an even better idea. "Do you want me to make sure he's there on a certain day? Then we can finally strike."
"That," Pierce hummed slowly, "would be excellent." Christie nodded and shook off her lab coat, replacing it with her own signature short leather one and pushed past Pierce to leave. "Oh, and Agent?" Christie turned around to see Pierce still standing there expressionlessly. "Whenever you feel like betraying HYDRA as quickly as you betrayed S.H.I.E.L.D, just remember those lovely little letters burnt into the flesh on your hip. You know what we do to traitors that carry our brand, right?" Christie absentmindedly ran her fingers over the branded area before dropping her hand again.
"Pierce, if you were actually listening to the speech that I gave whilst being terrorised by your idiotic soldiers, you'd know that actually I want the same aims as you do – to watch S.H.I.E.L.D burn. Betrayal is not in my nature but HYDRA is in my blood. Hail HYDRA, blah blah - goodnight," she reminded him shortly before spinning on her heel and stomping back down the corridor, biting her lip as she felt Pierce's eyes follow her hauntingly until she was out of sight.
…
"Fury! I need to speak to you! Now, please!" Christie shouted as soon as she burst into his office, where Agent Hill and Natasha were chatting away with him. On any other day, Fury would've told her to wait - but considering both the mission she was on and the panic in her voice, he decided to react immediately.
"Sure thing - sorry ladies, d'ya mind excusing us?" he asked politely but with urgency in his tone. Agent Hill stood up at his request and nodded briskly, whilst Natasha still wasn't compliant.
She stayed rooted to the spot, eyeing Christie up and down as if she had never seen her before, and Christie's patience was wearing thin.
"Oh Natasha, do one! This is too important for a f*cking dramatic as sh*t stare-down!" Christie stressed, clapping her hands together with each syllable for emphasis. Fury stared over at Natasha until she finally stood up and reluctantly left the room with a face like death.
"She's gonna start hating the hell outta you for that," Fury warned Christie, who gave an immediate careless shrug back.
"She's just throwing her toys out of the pram because she doesn't like being left out of things - she'll live. But listen, Fury - Pierce is coming after you and I need you to act on it - and fast," she hissed, after ensuring that any electrical equipment surrounding them was unplugged.
"Yeah, I guessed as much," Fury shrugged back.
"No, but you have to be dead," Christie muttered, finally satisfied that the room wasn't bugged and sitting down.
"Excuse me?" Fury raised a sceptical eyebrow.
"Seriously, Fury, you have to trust me on this one," she continued, taking out her beloved small slim silver disk and placing it on the table. She popped on the little button and expanded the holographic databases. "They've got Steve's Washington address, assuming you live there, and I don't know what they're planning to do with it but we must strike first, like stage your death or something - anything. Right about now we're one step ahead and I intend on keeping it that way."
"Alright, alright, I'm hearing you, Darmer - but don't you have enough information to strike now? You know, before it has to lead to the permanent shutdown of S.H.I.E.L.D?" Fury asked her quickly, opening another hologram up and scrolling through all of the data that Christie had recorded over the past weeks.
"I mean yeah, I have the core information - but I still don't think it is enough for us to take them all down," she shook her head, running her fingers through her hair stressfully. "It's too early and there's way too many of them mixed in with us. They'll have too many back up plans that I won't be able to keep up with, you know I won't. If I strike now, yes undercover HYDRA opps will stand up from S.H.I.E.L.D - but for as far as we know - we might be overrun and outnumbered. We don't know how many double agents we're actually dealing with here, Fury."
Fury sighed, registering the certainty and determination in her voice, and gave her a nod.
"Fine, I'm all ears. So what do you suggest we do?"
"Well first of all, we have to move the most loyal and trusted S.H.I.E.L.D agents somewhere else - change bases completely. The core ones - you should know who they are," Christie began, ticking the options off her slender fingers. Fury's eye went wide and he let out a sarcastic laugh.
"Right, cos it's that easy," he scoffed, shutting the hologram down and staring at her ludicrously.
"Fury, I already told you to trust me, and you said you would so cut the sh*t and listen to me," Christie cut him off quickly before ticking off option two. "Next, we have to make you appear dead, okay? Just like you did with Coulson." Fury couldn't help it - his mouth dropped open in shock for a good few seconds. "Yes I always knew – Ashley told me as soon as she saved him."
This made Fury let out a sigh.
"Damnit. I should've known she wouldn't be able to keep things from you." Christie looked away uncomfortably. She hated talking about her sister like that, particularly as their relationship wasn't as sweet as everyone thought.
"What can I say - she talks a lot. Anyway, when you do 'die', neither Steve nor Natasha nor the rest, in fact, can know that you are alive, got it? Not for a while…it could potentially ruin everything. I'll make it as believable as possible. Leave it to me - I'll have to have a word with Banner," she abruptly finished the conversation, all talk of Ashley bringing back a few too many memories.
…
Later that same day, Christie was walking down the busy street as casually as she could, watching her leather heeled boots click against the pavement with every step. Then, before she could even register what was happening, she had accidentally violently barged shoulders with someone. She immediately snapped her head up to apologise - but, to her dismay, quickly recognised who was grinning down at her with his hands intrusively resting on her waist. "For f*cks sake Axel - I've got no time for a conversation right now," Christie snapped as she stepped aside - just for him to step the same way, rudely blocking her path.
"Oh so you remembered my name?! That is something," he laughed heartily as he ran his hands down her waist and over her bum, which just made Christie feel physically nauseous. Before she could do or say anything, the sudden sound of gunshots popped in the air and the civilians surrounding them let out screams. Christie craned her neck in the direction of the noise and peered into the busy road, quickly seeing the car that she knew belonged to Fury violently twist and flip.
"Hereeee we go. Axel I need to go," she mumbled in a rush, now pushing past him and heading in the direction of the drama.
"When's 'later?'" Axel called, still scurrying after her. "Wait, where are you - Oh I see, you want to see our boy in his first line of action!" Christie suddenly frowned at his words and spun around, accidentally ending up in his arms again.
"First line of what?! What do you mean? What's his first line of action?" she rambled out in a panic.
"I'm not authorised to know those kinds of details - but I do know that those gunshots back there were probably his handiwork," Axel waved off the questions with his voice practically dripping in pride.
Christie's heart dropped.
They had James doing this job, which meant that was it. Her mission was coming to a close – because he had officially been turned an assassin again.