The Ghost
Summary: "Still chasing ghosts, Commander?"
"No... this time, I'm hunting them."
Pairing: OC/Kensi Blye

Port of Los Angeles
Midnight, July 20th, 2025
Warehouse 17

The silent, balmy night shattered as explosions ripped through the building, reducing it to a scene of utter carnage.
Emerging from the flames walked a woman. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail, lips coated in a trademark crimson curve a vicious smirk that lacked any warmth. She looked up, directly into a security camera. Her cold, sapphire-blue eyes could have stopped a man's heart if any had been left alive to see them.
Then she vanished into the shadows.

Office of Special Projects, Los Angeles
Morning

Agents Callen, Sam Hanna, Kensi Blye, and LAPD liaison Marty Deeks arrived at the office, where tension buzzed through the air like static.
"The hell is going on?" Sam asked.
His question was quickly answered when Eric's voice crackled over the intercom.
"Upstairs. Now. We've got something."
Nell stood by the screen when they arrived, tapping her tablet.
"At midnight, a warehouse down by the port exploded."
She flicked a still image onto the screen: a paused frame of a lone woman walking away from the flames, smoke curling behind her.
With a swipe, she enlarged the image.

"Who is she?" Callen asked.
"That's what worries me," Nell replied.

Eric shook his head.
"There's nothing on her. No social media. No digital footprint. Nothing. Whoever this is... she's got serious skills."

"If she's that good, why look directly into a camera?" Deeks asked.

"Because she wanted to be seen," Kensi said, her voice tight.
"She's former military. Look at how she moves deliberate, controlled. That kind of posture? That's training."
Her stomach clenched. Something about the woman felt... familiar. Too familiar.

Before anyone could respond, the door opened.
"Mr. Callen. Ms. Blye. Get to the scene. Now."
"On it," Kensi said, and she and Callen quickly left.

Port of Los Angeles — Hours Later

Six brutal hours under the relentless sun. Little to show for it but grime, frustration, and mounting tension. Kensi and Callen trudged back into HQ, sweat clinging to them like a second skin.
They uploaded their field images. Sam hovered over them, flipping through frame after frame — slow, methodical.
Then he froze.

A torn piece of fabric filled the screen — a military sleeve, half-burned but the insignia still visible. Ghostly. Unmistakable.
"Eric," Sam said, voice tight, "run it through every known database."

Eric's fingers flew across the keyboard — then stopped dead.
The screen flickered once, then stabilized. A high-res photo appeared, stamped across the top in stark red: CLASSIFIED.

Eric read aloud, disbelief threading his voice:
"Commander Evangeline Black. Codename: Viper."

A heavy silence fell, thick and suffocating.

"Holy shit," Kensi whispered, staring at the screen. "She's the real Black Widow."

Then — the screen glitched.
A new message blinked into existence:
Thank you, Agent Blye.

Everyone in the room froze.

"What the fuck?!" Eric gasped, hands flying to the keyboard. "She hacked us she hacked me — and I didn't even see it."

Off to the side, Hetty slipped away, quiet as a shadow.
She moved to initiate her own investigation pulling every string she had left to find anything useful: a location, a trace, a lead.
She also sent a terse, coded message to Nate Getz, the team's operational psychologist.
They would need him soon.

Kensi's voice broke the tension, low and rough:
"The Commander isn't our enemy. Not really." She drew in a shaky breath.
"But whoever made her this way? To them... she's a reckoning. And we just got caught in the middle." The others exchanged wary glances but said nothing. Some things didn't need to be voiced. The team quietly broke for the night.

Kensi hit the showers, letting the hot water pound against her skin. Steam rose, coiling around her like smoke, loosening muscles tight from hours of strain.
And beneath it all beneath the adrenaline, the fear, the exhaustion there was something else.
A slow, electric thrill.

Because their "ghost" wasn't just a myth in the system.
She was real.
And Kensi knew deep down she hadn't seen the last of her.

OSP Headquarters — Six Months Later

For six long months, the team had chased the mysterious woman — always one step behind, always too late.
Frustration gnawed at them like a constant, invisible predator. So when they arrived on a sweltering Monday morning, already bracing for more dead ends, they didn't expect the message that flickered onto the main monitor:

Come to the Boatshed if you want answers.

"Well, that's not creepy at all," Deeks muttered, forcing a smile he didn't feel.
Hetty saw the message, said nothing, and immediately dispatched the team.

The Boatshed

They arrived to find the place empty.
For a moment, the silence was total.

Then the monitor flickered again, displaying a new message:
Now that you're all here, it's time you faced the woman who's been ahead of you for the last six months.

The words had barely faded before the back door creaked open.

She stepped through like she owned the place.

Commander Evangeline Black.

Thick black hair tumbled freely down her back.
Sapphire-blue eyes swept over the four agents, watching, assessing, calculating.

An unzipped black leather jacket hung from her shoulders, revealing a fitted black tank top that framed a generous glimpse of creamy skin.
Black jeans hugged her hips and legs like a second skin, emphasizing the lithe, lethal strength in her movements.
On her feet, a flash of rebellion: red sneakers.
Her lips were painted a wicked crimson, the corners lifting into a slow, confident wasn't didn't need to be. Every danger instinct in Callen, Sam, Kensi, and Deeks flared like a struck match.
In an instant, they all understood:

The Commander could take them all down single-handedly and never break a sweat.

Deeks stared, wide-eyed, as she casually slid into a chair at the table, like she belonged there.
"What. how, why " he stammered.

"Deeks," Kensi cut in sharply. "Breathe."

She moved first, sitting across from the Commander, cautious, muscles coiled tight.
The others followed, wary and tense.
Sam sat like a loaded spring.
Deeks perched uneasily on the edge of his chair.
Callen simply glared, instincts screaming bring her in.

The Commander only smiled patient, unbothered, as if she had all the time in the world.

Before anyone could speak, the door opened — and Agent Nell Jones walked in, clutching her tablet tightly to her chest.

"Nell?" Callen said, rising halfway out of his chair. "What are you doing here?"

Nell's voice was calm, steady.
"I'm here to make sure the Commander doesn't kill you all."

The Commander tilted her head slightly, amused.

"I've never killed anyone," she said smoothly. A pause. "Aside from those who deserved it."

Deeks snorted in disbelief, tipping back in his chair.

"You don't look like a soldier," he said, voice dripping with skepticism. "No, you look more like someone you'd find on late-night pay-per-view. I'd very much like to interrogate you myself." Evangeline cocked an eyebrow at the cockiness oozing from the LAPD liaison. She tilted her head, studying Deeks like he was a mildly interesting insect.
"A soldier?" she repeated softly, a flicker of amusement touching her crimson mouth. "No, Officer Deeks. I prefer to win my battles before the first shot is ever fired." Her gaze cut sharper, voice still even, almost lazy.
"That's why you'll never beat me. You think being loud makes you dangerous. You confuse charm with control. It's why you're still trying to earn your place here, still hoping one day you'll feel like you deserve to stand beside them." Deeks stiffened, the easy grin faltering. Evangeline's eyes slid past him deliberate, slow grazing across Callen, Sam, Kensi.
She smiled thinly, the barest curve of her lips. "I know all your tells," she said, voice dropping into a purr.
"How you fight. How you bleed. How you break." A heavy silence smothered the room. Even Callen leaned forward slightly, tension bristling off him.
Evangeline simply leaned back in her chair, utterly unbothered. "I didn't come here to play games," she finished. "I came here to see who was worth keeping alive." Nell watched, her throat dry and heart hammering against her ribs, instinctively calculating the nearest exit and wondering if hiding was a viable survival strategy.

"Six months ago, you blew up a warehouse full of military equipment," Callen said, his voice sharp, cutting through the heavy silence. "You tell us what you know, maybe we can make a deal."

Evangeline's eyes narrowed. The amused, languid predator was gone, replaced by something sharper, colder.
"If this 'deal' involves me crawling back under Uncle Sam's boot," she said, voice curdling with disdain, "you can forget it."

The faintest slip in her New York accent cracked through the words a rich, unmistakable Russian edge bleeding into her tone.
Her anger licked just beneath the surface now, raw and jagged, no longer fully contained behind her polished mask.

"I don't trust them," she hissed. "Not after they sold me out like yesterday's trash."

A.N: Please read and review. This will be a slow burn fic. I hope you like it. Flames will be used to make s'mores.