"Because it's Katherine, and she's smart, and conniving, and sneaky." — Caroline Forbes

"Mind control, as you said earlier. Not telepathy. I can't read people's thoughts or literally get inside their heads. I can, however, make them tell me whatever I want them to, or do whatever I want them to, hence why I don't have to pay for anything! I should've been more careful with that though, I suppose." Katherine let out a small giggle. "Um, as you might've guessed earlier from what I said, I have…enhanced hearing. Uh, also enhanced speed, regenerative healing factor—learnt that one from those nerdy shows—and that is why your guns won't work on me, and I suppose also why your sedative only lasted two hours."

Fury was, admittedly, very intrigued. They had come across enhanced personnel before. Hell, even Captain America was out of the ice now, and they had also dealt with Thor, who was literally, to some degree, a God. But even he didn't have all the abilities Katherine had just described.

Mind control. That's how she had been doing everything without paying. That's how she had been doing whatever the hell she wanted. And it was dangerous. She was dangerous. Yet, despite the power she had, and despite what she could achieve with it, she had just been shopping. She had been avoiding rent.

And enhanced hearing. To the point she apparently could hear his men, who were nowhere close by. She could hear them breathing. And that was a skill that made the perfect spy.

And, enhanced speed. To what extent, he wasn't sure. But, again, something that would benefit a spy, an assassin or a soldier alike greatly. And also something which helped her be dangerous—helped her be a threat—and she had been shopping. She probably could've taken control of the damn president if she truly wanted to. Fury didn't even know if she realised the full capacity of the things she could do, or of the things she could achieve, yet didn't

And regenerative healing factor, as if the rest wasn't enough. Enough that, supposedly, she'd heal from gun wounds. He needed to find out to what extent it was; if it was to all parts of her body; if it was on a cellular level; if it was only flesh wounds, or also diseases and pathogens—if it could save lives.

And it made her the perfect assassin. It made her the perfect spy.

It made her a perfect candidate.

"Is that all?" He asked sarcastically.

"No, actually! I'm also pretty damn strong."

Fury let out a sigh, not sure as to whether she was simply adding that to be funny or if she actually also had enhanced strength.

"So, tell me, where exactly did you gain all these abilities?"

Because, he was intrigued. The amount of people turning up with abilities, or who were enhanced or 'super' in some kind of way, was growing at an exponential and worrying rate. She was another example of that, and S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to find out if there was a singular group or organisation—or multiple—directly responsible in enhancing people.

"I died, I think." She paused. "But I woke up, and I had these abilities. It was in a car crash. My parents and I…we were driving, and the car went over a bridge. They drowned, but I managed to get out. I don't know how. Doctors said I was in a coma for weeks, and I woke up with these abilities, and half my memory gone. I assume someone experimented on me, but I don't know who and I don't know where."

She sounded genuine enough, but Fury wasn't a man who didn't take precaution. He'd be using the truth serum soon enough, but it was better to discern whether she was telling them the truth from the beginning, or if she was lying.

"And how old were you when this all happened?"

"Seventeen."

"And how old are you now?"

"Twenty-two."

He was unsure. She looked younger.

"Well, Miss Pierce, saying this is all true, none of it explains why there are absolutely no records on you whatsoever."

"Katherine isn't my real name." She confessed. "I will admit, I did come here illegally. I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and that's where I grew up. My real name is Katerina Petrova. I came to America to start a new life about six months ago, which is why I 'appeared out of thin air'."

He noted to look up Katerina Petrova instead, and look through Bulgarian records to see whether he story checked out. Although, it would be significantly harder trying to access foreign records. If her story checked out to be true, that meant S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to invest more of its time and efforts into exploring Eastern Europe; they needed to see if there were other experiments or incidents like this.

"You know you just admitted to the man that's head of an agency tasked with maintaining global security that you're an illegal immigrant?"

But that was reassuring. It meant she wasn't trying to hide from a man that could potentially arrest her. But her openness was also equally suspicious.

"Maybe you can help a girl out with that?"

"Maybe I can." He smirked. He wasn't all too concerned about that, considering everything else. If she wasn't a threat, but instead a potential asset, he'd easily get her citizenship. "Question is, can you help me?"

He began to walk away, preparing to take Katherine to another room to continue the interrogation, with aid of the serum, but paused when he heard no footsteps following. "Well, are you coming or not?"

The young girl began to follow, as did his men from around the room. As they approached the door, he began to speak again. "I, Miss Pierce—"

"Please, call me Katherine. Miss Pierce makes me sound so old." She interrupted. Sassy, he noted. She had a fiery personality. Somewhat entitled, too, but he could deal with that.

"Katherine." He rectified, knowing he wouldn't stick with it. "I am the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. My name is Nick Fury, but everyone here addresses me as Director Fury."

Once out the door, Fury began to lead Katherine, as well as his five men, through the hallways of the New York S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters where they were currently situated.

"And you're trusting me with this information why?"

"Because, Katherine, you had every opportunity to kill me in that room if you wished to do so if you truly are enhanced in all the ways you said you are, yet you didn't. And since I believe myself to be a reasonable man, I've decided I can bring you somewhere slightly more comfortable to continue this assessment." She was a potential threat, so the less hostile the situation seemed the better. He had every intention of keeping both himself and his men alive, and he really didn't want to lose her, because she may just be of great benefit. "And you may just be of use to us, Miss Pierce."

"Wait." Katherine stopped in place, and Fury turned to face her. "What do you mean 'of use', because I seriously don't want any experiments being done on me."

Self-preservation. That seemed to be the most prominent personality trait. She almost sounded fearful at the prospect of experiments. Almost. But he had a hunch she wasn't exactly one to show fear—hell, she smiled with a gun pointed to her face.

That wasn't something you saw every day.

"No, not experiments." Nothing she didn't consent to, anyway. "I'm sure you've been subjected to enough of them to end up with all the abilities you have." He turned and continued to walk. "How familiar are you with espionage, Miss Pierce?"

"Are you asking me to be a spy, Director Fury?" She asked, and he didn't miss the intrigue in her voice. Definitely a potential candidate, he noted.

The Avengers Initiative had been scrapped, but she was perfect for it.

"Not quite, Miss Pierce. But, with the right training and making sure you aren't a threat, that may just become a possibility."

Fury was very aware of the ever growing threats that faced earth and the humans from it, both from within it and outside of it. What happened in New Mexico with Thor made him, as well as others, aware of just how hilariously outgunned they were, hence why the tesseract was being used to create an arsenal. Hence why Phase 2 was taking place, but Fury wasn't placing all his bets on it. He didn't particularly want to do it at all, but he realised it was a necessity, and he realised that he had to compromise with the council wherever he could—particularly due to the fact they weren't that overly fond of the idea of the Avengers.

The idea to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could fight something more. And Katherine was appearing to be rather remarkable. He needed to run an assessment of sorts to see how truly fast or strong or capable she was, and maybe the people under him would scold him for being so hasty (especially due to the very obvious stark-like qualities she was showing) but he was too convinced to change his mind. If she revealed to be a threat, he'd deal with her as one. But, until then, he'd deal with her as if she was a potential new member of the team.

Soon enough, they reached the room which Fury intended to continue the interrogation in. It was comfortable, albeit a little small. It was usually used for small meetings, with padded chairs and all, and was hopefully an environment she'd be less hostile in. He prompted for the men to leave, but kept one outside of the door. Just in case.

"In order to continue our 'Q and A'," He began, imitating her usage of the words, "as you called it, I will need to inject you with something." He pulled out a relatively large looking needle from one of his trench coat pockets, and couldn't help but be amused at the way her face faltered. "QNB T-16. A truth serum, in other words. A friend of mine likes to describe it as a 'top-shelf martini of sodium-pentothal derivatives'. And, trust me, it works. However, it only lasts about an hour, so I have no idea how long it will last on you, so I hope you'll answer my questions quickly."

She nodded, seeming a little nervous, but that wasn't entirely unnatural. Anyone would be, particularly given the circumstances. Being forced to tell the truth was a scary thing.

He injected her, and she let out a sharp hiss, but the cut of it almost healed immediately as he pulled it out.

She wasn't lying. She really did have a regenerative healing factor.

"What is your real name, Miss Pierce?" He asked, beginning the interrogation once again.

"Katerina Petrova." She responded. She didn't lie, again.

"And where were you born?"

"Sofia, Bulgaria." Another truth.

"And when were you born?"

"June 5th, 1989." The answer nearly sounded forced, but the truth serum had a tendency to do that.

"Do you have any siblings?"

"I did." She swallowed thickly. "A sister, but she—she was murdered."

There was a look of fear on her face as she admitted that, as if she never wanted to touch on the subject; as if she wasn't supposed to.

"And how was she—"

"The Mafia." She blurted out, a clear venom behind her voice. "The Mutri. I don't actually know what my parents did—they may have had ties to travellers, I'm not sure—but they definitely had something to do with the mafia. I don't know. It-it happened a two years before the car accident, if it even was an accident…" She scoffed, her eyes becoming darker. "And I saw her murdered body. I saw her blood all over the wall. They killed her while I was at school, and my parents were out."

Fury cursed inwardly. As much as she was under a truth serum, and as much as she sounded as if she was telling the truth due to the sheer amount of emotion in her voice, the involvement of a mafia suddenly made it far harder for Fury to get his hands on any files—if there even were any available at all—and see whether her story checked out. Particularly with the Bulgarian mafia, who had been able to infiltrate their own government.

But everything did check out. Her sister would've been murdered in 2004 or 2005, which was during the government of National Movement Simeon II when assassinations became especially common in Bulgaria. It wasn't his area of expertise, but even S.H.I.E.L.D spent time tracking mafia activity, and even the European Union had publically acknowledged Bulgaria's incompetence at combatting organized crime.

"And are you enhanced?" He asked once more, leaving the clearly touchy subject behind.

"Yes."

"And in what ways are you enhanced?"

"Mind control, or, as I call it, compulsion. It's dependent on eye contact." And this was when Katherine began to look as if she truly didn't want to say the words coming out of her mouth; as if she was fighting against it. "I can make someone do whatever I want with it." Which intrigued Fury greatly. "I can run at…inhuman speeds, and I have, quote-unquote, inhuman strength. Nothing can kill me—I heal from pretty much everything. Everything except a wound to my heart, or being decapitated, or fire, so shoot me in the head and I'll recover. Mind intact and all."

Fury watched as Katherine bit her lip, drawing blood, and dug her nails into the side of the chair, easily ripping its fabric. She was trying to fight the serum.

"Is that all, Miss Pierce?"

"Super senses." She choked out, letting out a hitched breath. Her previous confidence visibly waning. "Not just hearing. Sight. Smell. Taste. All that jazz." Katherine kissed her teeth, and Fury could very clearly see her exasperation. "And I'm…'durable', just as I can heal."

So, she had left some things out.

He leant in closer in his own seat as she began to squirm. "And how did you gain these abilities?"

"Like I said, I died, and I woke up with them."

"In a car crash?"

"Yes."

Fury and she both lapsed into a silence, an awkward air filling the room. After a few moments of contemplating, he finally broke the insufferable lack of sound, much to Katherine's (apparent) relief.

"Alright, go home. Get some sleep. I'll be in touch with you tomorrow."

"Wait, that's it? We're done?" She asked.

"Yes. I'll be contacting you tomorrow to bring you in for an assessment of all your abilities, but until then you're free to go. One of my men will lead you to the front entrance and bring you home. I trust you'll keep the location of this S.H.I.E.L.D. base private. But, then again, based on your phone logs, you don't really have that many people to tell."

She let out a chuckle, and raised her eyebrows in a fashion as if to concede, and Fury gave a light smile in response. She was an interesting one, and his curiosity had definitely piqued.

Manhattan, New YorkMarch 3rd 2012

Katherine couldn't sleep that night.

Not because she was stressed or worried, but purely due to the sheer amount of things that had occurred that day. Her mind couldn't rest for even a moment.

First of all, she had not only gotten into the one and only Tony Stark's party, but she had also interacted with him for a prolonged period of time and she was very much convinced she could seduce him with words alone (which only made her wonder what she could achieve with her body, and she was oh-so intrigued to try). And on top of that, even if as a result of her abduction, she had subsequently left her jacket behind, which meant she could go back to retrieve it (because she was not about to leave a Gucci jacket behind!)

The fact the guy had managed to stick an injection in her neck revealed to Katherine that she wasn't as careful as she had been, and her senses were nowhere near as alert as they once were...which may or may not have prompted her in finally indulging in her first feeding of blood since arriving here, but she desperately needed it. But the Voice really couldn't be too angry with her, since she didn't kill the guy, and she didn't even indulge in some good blood. She chose some drunken idiot in a back alley, and the alcohol in his system had left a disgusting chemical aftertaste in her mouth, but she put up with it. Because she had to. It at least quenched her bloodlust for a moment, and her senses did feel ten times sharper as a result.

She wasn't going to desiccate without it, but she wasn't going to thrive either.

She also discovered that, while 'The Voice' had indeed taken away the usual bloodshot sclera and red veins running down her face that she was used to while feeding, when she had managed to catch her reflection on a broken piece of a mirror on the ground, she saw that the Voice had instead decided to replace it with completely black eyes! Because looking like an actual demon wasn't creepy, apparently. Not at all.

God, it made her look like a traveller.

(Which she technically was, but that didn't mean she wanted to look like one.)

Even if the guy who drugged and abducted hershe refused to call what he did anything else other than thatwas a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, she still couldn't shake the 'off' feeling he gave her, or the rage his mere presence managed to evoke within her. Katherine liked to believe she was a good judge of character, and that she could read people easily, but she had never quite felt anything like what she had felt around him. It was inexplicable, really.

But she chose to ignore it. She supposed it was just due to her hunger, and how much she wanted to, well, drain all his blood from his body.

She supposed it worked for the better, though. The Voice must've been working in finally getting her to do the whole 'greater good' thing, since it happened that a secret extra-government agency had been keeping its tabs on her, and then didn't choose to experiment on her after finding out about her (even if there was a lack of the word 'vampire', thank God—Voice?) but instead was maybe giving her a position as a spy. Maybe. She wasn't entirely sure.

But it was promising.

The hardest part of it all was the truth serum, which she was, ultimately, able to resist, but only barely.

It was easier at first, but became harder as time went on, and there was a few moments she genuinely was forced to tell the truth. Such as when she admitted to having a sister who died, and then had to make up the whole 'mafia' thing. Luckily, she had always kept herself up to speed with politics in Bulgariasince she supposed she did feel some sentiment toward her place of birthand had managed to pull together a convincing story that may or may not benefit her in covering up her semi-false origins, but Katherine would've much rather covered up the sibling thing altogether. It meant there were more elements to her story—to her—that had to be explored, and that made it harder for everything to seem legit.

Worse comes to worst, she'd compel him. But hopefully it didn't come to that.

God, what had the voice done to her?

Since when did she hesitate to compel someone?

Katherine couldn't sleep that night.

Unknown: Be ready at 9AM. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with the name Coulson will be waiting outside your door to pick you up.

Katherine groaned at her phone, woken up by the anonymous and not-at-all-ominous text sent by S.H.I.E.L.D (because apparently 'SHIELD' wasn't good enough, the dots had to be there even when texting) that had somehow managed to bypass her 'Do Not Disturb' setting. Looking at the time, she lazily registered that her phone screen read 8:01AM, and that they had only given her an hour to be ready.

Great. Her morning was going great.

"Meow."

"Oh, shut up, rat."

"Meeooww."

"I am seriously not in the mood, Lucifer." Katherine sighed, getting out of bed to make her way to the shower. The cat, however, did not stop. "I cannot stand your incessant mewling—oh my god did you just scratch me?"

Eyes now on the cat (demon), Lucifer sauntered over back to its bowl, and Katherine saw what the big problem was. The cat's bowl was empty.

And the cat stared at her expectantly as if it had done nothing wrong at all.

"Why did I save you?" Katherine whined, throwing her arms up in defeat. "Why?"

Quickly pouring Lucifer's food and filling up his water bowl (which was already full, but Lucifer always seemed to find a way to drive Katherine insane, so there was nothing wrong with being safe), Katherine proceeded to get ready in record time, allowing her hair to dry in its usual long curls and not wasting any time on putting a relatively practical, but still fashionable, outfit.

And—yes—a leather jacket with skinny black jeans and heeled boots was Katherine's idea of practical.

At 8:59, she heard a knock on her door.

"You're early." She greeted. "Aren't you supposed to be creepily on time and knock exactly when the clock hits 9, because that's what I would do if I was a secret government agent, y'know." The man, Coulson, opened his mouth to speak, but Katherine quickly cut in. "Speaking of which, the agent you guys sent after me last night? Not the best. I was onto him the entire night, and he totally gave himself away when I called him out for it."

"Really? I'm surprised. I consider Agent Ward to be one of my best."

"One of your best?" Katherine queried, walking alongside Coulson who, due to Katherine's extra added height from her heels, she happened to be taller than by an inch or so.

"Oh, did they not tell you? I'm Fury's second-in-command."

That was something that, admittedly, Katherine had not expected.

"Hm, so I was interrogated by the Director, and now I'm being escorted his second-in-command. Do I suspect some special treatment going on here, Agent Coulson?" Katherine bit her lip tentatively, a foxy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Think of it as a precaution, Miss Pierce."

Katherine almost felt as if she should've been hurt at his comment, but, of course, wasn't. Coulson, however misleading his outer appearance may have been, was good. Katherine couldn't read his actual emotion, despite the ever-present hint of a smile that lingered on his face. He was very well poised, too. Had a kind of 'Men in Black' vibe to him. Then again, she didn't suppose that was too far off his actual job description.

The drive to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters only took about half an hour, given that it was located just outside of Hell's Kitchen, hidden in the plain site of the chaos of Time's Square, and she was living in Upper Manhattan. Upon arriving, Coulson led her to what seemed to be a training room (hall? Katherine wasn't sure) of sorts, that was separated from the room she currently stood in by a dark blue wall and two way mirror. Next to the door, there was a small control panel, a microphone and four screens, and Katherine couldn't help but feel as though she was about to become a part of a science experiment.

This was where her 'assessment' was about to take place.

"Miss Pierce." She turned around to face Fury, who was accompanied by a few others she had never seen before, one of which was a woman with short red hair. She was pretty, Katherine noted. Very pretty. The kind you would never get in mystic falls. "I trust you're ready for your assessment?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. But I'm not entirely sure what's actually going to happen?"

He smiled a little, keeping his hands held behind him. "All will be explained. Just enter the room, and I'll speak to you through the intercom."

She nodded, a little unsure, but entered the room nonetheless. It was a bare, well-lit room that was about 100 metres long, and 50 metres wide.

"Okay, Miss Pierce," She heard over the intercom, annoyed at the fact it lagged ever-so-slightly behind the sounds of his actual voice, but she guessed normal humans couldn't actually hear them speak. There were four speakers in each corner of the room, as well as four cameras beneath each. "A punching bag is going to come down from the ceiling"—and, as if on cue, a panel from the ceiling moved to the side, and a punching bag was lowered in front of her—"this will be used to measure the force of your punch, so to say. So, whenever you feel ready, feel free to punch the—"

And so Katherine did.

And the punching bag broke off its chain, and flew to the other side of the room.

"Sir—"

"She—"

"I know." Fury interjected, and Katherine suppressed a smirk.

Fury pressed the button for the intercom once again, "Katherine, do you realise that it took five punches for Captain America to break that thing and it only reached half the distance that yours just did?"

"She has to work on her punching technique," Katherine heard vaguely from the redhead, "but her strength is monstrous."

Katherine smiled coyly, biting on her thumb nail. "Oops?" She giggled, no hint of any real remorse in her voice or on her face.

The punching bag was quickly cleared from the room, and the next assessment was set into place: speed.

"Katherine, for this one, please only start when I say go, because we actually need to record it. This one is much simpler and...hopefully doesn't involve anything breaking. We simply are going to record how long it takes you to sprint from one end of a room to another and back again, so set yourself up against either wall, and you only run when I say go."

Katherine stood casually against the wall, not entering any kind of starting position, and she was sure she heard Fury sigh.

"On your marks." She remained still. "Get set." She remained still again.

"Katherine! I said 'Get set'!"

Katherine huffed, but entered a lazy running position.

"Go."

And so she did.

"Did she just..."

"She definitely just did."

"Sir, that was only 0.3 seconds. How did she—"

"She's—"

"Super."

She heard them replaying the footage, and replaying it again, and then slowing it down, and replaying it again.

Fury and Coulson both entered the room, each of them wearing absolute looks of shock on their face.

"What?" She asked innocently, shrugging her shoulders. "I told you I'm enhanced."

The first part of this chapter has a lot of text in italics, which is because it's quoted from the last chapter, since I'm showing it from Fury's perspective. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear!

No one actually knows if the truth serum is actually a pseudo-drug or not, but for the sake of my story, it actually works (well, not quite on Katherine). It's yet another reference to AoS though, which anyone who watches it may have caught onto.

I feel like I'm trying to channel a lot of Katherine's 1800s vibe into this, but I don't know how well I'm doing with that. I also don't know how I've managed to release three chapters three days in a row, but maybe I should focus on revising on my upcoming GCSEs instead? I've just never had such ease writing before, and it's so tempting.

Anyway, as always, leave me your thoughts!