Eva didn't see the Avengers for the next couple of days; they were away on still away on that mission, and on the day they were due to return the administrator called to rearrange their meeting. Eva really, really didn't want to go, but if she wanted to avoid arousing the woman's suspicions she would have to.
She still hadn't figured out a way to save the day. Those crappy movies made it look a lot easier than it was, and Rachel Carson was contributing nothing to the brainstorming process.
Nothing seemed off when she arrived at the HQ; it was slightly emptier than normal, but then the Earth's Mightiest Heroes took up a lot of space. The administrator was her usual smiling self as she accompanied Eva back to her office, and the girl had calmed down to the point that she didn't even notice the click of the door being locked behind her.
"So glad you could make it this time," said the administrator, and Eva shrugged as they sat down.
"I'm not busy on Sundays, as a rule. Now what was it you wanted me to-" she froze as the woman, still smiling, pointed a handgun at her across the desk. "Oh."
"Hand over the USB," she said sweetly.
"I don't have it."
"Of course you do. You're not going to leave something as important as that lying around, are you?"
Scowling, Eva dug her hand into the pocket of her leathers. "Hang on," she said, "these are difficult to get stuff out of." Before closing her fingers around the memory stick, however, she unlocked her phone, tapped Vision's speed dial and muted it without looking. "Here you go."
The USB skidded across the desk; the administrator grabbed it with her free hand. "I figured you weren't smart," she said reflectively, "what with your chosen career, but I never expected you to be stupid enough to hack my computer, while thinking I wouldn't notice."
Of course- Eva hadn't asked Alvie to show her how to do it without being tracked, and she knew the other woman well enough to realize that it wouldn't occur to her to show Eva something without being asked to. Eva herself, meanwhile, had naively assumed that she had. "I'm not stupid," she said defensively, "I'm smarter than you. Clever enough to figure out who the good guys are, and that HYDRA's a load of fascist killers."
"It's more complicated than that."
"No," said Eva, "no, not really. I think you're so deep into their web, ma'am, that you can't see the forest for trees. HYDRA's evil, and foul, and… and evil," she finished, lamely.
Something flickered across the administrator's face, and she pulled back the safety on the gun. "Of course," she said, "I'm going to have to kill you too, now."
There was the distinctive whirr of a quinjet's engines as one landed on the helipad outside the window, presumably with the Avengers on board. "Then they'll find you standing over my dead body."
"I managed to lie my way through SHIELD job interviews without arousing suspicion, girl, you think I can't worm my way out of that?" she asked. "You and one of the security guards don't get on, correct? I'll say there was an altercation, that he pulled out his gun. And then I'll shoot him, too. The costumed idiots will think that I did it trying to save your life."
"You're sick," said Eva, hoping the disgust in her voice would hide the tremble of fear. "You're a sick, twisted freak. Go on, then. Shoot me." She started to rise from her chair.
And the administrator shot her.
She felt the bullet pass, in exquisite high-definition pain, through her midriff, and heard it rip through the door behind her. She pressed a hand to her side, and pulled it away to see it slick with hot red blood. Everything seemed to be getting slower.
"Oh," she said vaguely, "you did."
"It will take them three minutes from hearing the shot to reach here," the administrator told her, as Eva fell to her knees. "By which time, you will have bled out, and I will have shot the fool of a guard, too." She dropped the gun on the table. "I never was a fan of firearms," she said softly, "a person more skilled than myself would have thought to shoot you in the head. But you know how it is… heat of the moment…"
"Three minutes," Eva managed to say, through gritted teeth. She could feel heat leaking out of the wound, but with her other hand pulled her phone out of her pocket and chucked it screen-up on the floor in front of her. "That include if they were listening to the conversation?"
Connected: Tall Glass of Water
"What?"
"You shot the wrong gardener, bitch," Eva spat, and behind her, eyes blazing with cold fury, Vision kicked the door down and went straight for the woman's heart with the jet of light that emanated from his forehead.
"Eva!" she heard someone yell, and darkness overcame her.
A/N in the words of Michael J Caboose: CLIFFHANGER! Also, "you shot the wrong gardener, bitch" is the most badass line in this fic. Along with "you're god damn right you should be scared of me, I'm the Winter bleeping Soldier" in Finding Bucky (except with less bleeping) and "Divine intervention" in OMAMM, which is in a chapter that hasn't been updated yet but trust me, when it happens, it's awesome. Anyway. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EVA?