#Kallus (who was never a bad guy in this au) is Agent Coulson

[jessicas-pi]

All the best meet cutes involve knives, I guess...

“Did it hurt?”

“If the next words out of your mouth are when you fell from heaven, I will cut your throat.”

Ezra gave the girl a grin, trying to ignore the cold metal pressed up against his neck. “I was gonna say, as the temperature of your bloodstream slowly lowered to a point that the human body could no longer maintain consciousness and you passed out from the cold. Because I’ve never actually manipulated the temperature of a living creature before, so, y’know, I'm just curious. For science purposes. By the way, you recovered really fast. I’m impressed.”

She shoved him a little harder against the floor, and the knife shifted closer.

“What are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, murder girl?”

“Don’t call me that.”

It was an impatient snarl, and Ezra winced as the knife started to press against his throat.

“Okay,” he breathed, trying not to move. “Okay. You’re not the one we’re looking for, anyway.”

The pressure let up as she sat back, surprised. “I’m not?”

“Really. So, how about you get off me, and I don’t freeze you solid, and we talk this out like normal people?”

She thought for a minute, and then she stood up, still holding the knife at the ready. Ezra sat.

“So, where is she?” he asked without preamble.

“What?”

“Me and my handler are looking for a woman, age 20 to 30, trained assassin, spent fifteen years in the Black Widow program before vanishing. This is her house, so where is she?”

The girl exhaled sharply, the scowl never leaving her face. “You’re looking for an ex-Black Widow?”

“Apparently, she goes by Ingenue now.”

“SHIELD is sending little boys to look for assassins?”

Ezra cleared his throat and stood, brushing off the dust that had stuck to him from the unswept floor. “First of all, I resent being called a little boy, and second of all, I wasn’t sent. I snuck along, and Agent Kallus is totally gonna ground me.” He looked around. “But he might not ground me quite as much if I find Ingenue, sooo… like I was asking. Where is she?”

The girl stepped backwards a few paces, and then dropped into the only chair in the one-room apartment. “She’s here.”

“She is?”

“You’re looking at her.”

Ezra did some math. She was sixteen—maybe seventeen, if he was being generous. Fifteen years of training…

The girl—Ingenue—smiled grimly, flicking her sunset-orange hair out of her face.

“The Academy takes us as babies.”

The silence was slow and long and potent. Then she grinned coldly.

“But, this does mean that I really am the one you’re looking for, so I’m gonna have to kill you now. No hard feelings.”

She was fast, but Ezra was faster.

His hand closed around the knife as she flew forward and swung it at him, enclosing both his fist and the blade in a casing of ice.

With a jerk of his hand, he snapped the brittle blade off its handle, and her eyes grew huge.

Frankly, he hadn’t known he could do that, either.

They stared at each other in silent shock, and then Ezra got what some people like to call a Terrible Idea.

“This is totally hypothetical,” he blurted out. “But how attached are you to this assassin thing?”

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BONUS: when kallus arrives 5 minutes later

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Part of this AU!