THE ARCHANGEL had successfully managed to make it to the abandoned safe-house. Unfortunately, she had left a toenail back in Washington. Sharply breathing in pain, otherwise emotionless, the woman had slowly crawled to where her handlers had said there was medical supplies. Thankfully, they hadn't lied. When she had gotten a substitute, a man with a cruel smile and an unusual willingness to punish her, he had sent her on a mission, only to lie about where the supplies were for her to efficiently eliminate her level 1 priority target. He had been punished, just not like she had been.

The nameless woman sat in the corner of the room, flexing her hand and watching as pure blue energy gently caressed and traveled around her hand like docile electricity. This wouldn't speed up, but wouldn't slow, her healing process. She flipped her hand over, watching with long ago dulled fascination as her veins lit up glow-stick blue in her arm. She faintly remembered a training session in which a guest doctor had marveled at the sight.

After sitting there for a great deal of time, preceded by her wrapping the top of her foot in bandaging, a sound of scuffling down the hall, out of her reach, was heard. Immediately, a nearly translucent blue force field went up, protecting her. Not caring of the risks, she screwed her eyes shut tightly and imagined herself in the hallway, with whatever caused the noise. After a bright, white hot pain in her navel, she was there, standing by a broken window. The connection was weak, the images flickering black from time to time.

By the window, she saw a dog. German Shepherd, at least 2 years and 3 months old. Male. Tired. There was no one to accompany the stray. Its big, brown eyes stared at her faint, flickering projection with her head cocked to the side with great curiosity. Animals could see her like this, humans could not. A very, very helpful advantage. Humans tended to disregard animals, which always seemed to get the better than them after they got their throat slit by a ghost. An unknown feeling surged within her, warm, full of desire, and she shoved it back down as soon as it had come. With bright eyes, she stared back at the dog through her projection.

A brief tug on her spine sent her spiraling back into her physical being. When she slammed into herself, she looked up with a quiet gasp as her body began functioning. Her skin was ashen, cracked like a porcelain doll. She had spirit travelled instead of simply projecting herself, something that was much more physically devastating. The Archangel stared angrily at her exposed flesh as it returned from the sickly pallor to its normal ivory. The process of spirit traveling was more common to demigods of Egyptian heritage, a process that always acquired one to actually die while their soul floated around to its desired destination. She, in this form, was considered a poltergeist. Invisible, easy to feel, and an efficient killer.

The Archangel watched, silent and detached as ever, while the dog trotted to the room, stopping in front of the now fading force field. She could not end the wall of energy just like that; it was impossible for her to do so.

The dog sniffed warily, before coming to her as it had been told. She could not control animals, she could only request of them. The Archangel, with her dulled but still prominent feminine aura, normally was not rejected by creatures when ever she did call on them. Which was not very often, because animals could be noisy if they were unruly.

This beast, however, did not seem to be unruly. It sniffed at her feet and legs several times, before sitting itself next to her. With ginger movements, she lifted a piece of beef jerky from a bag and held it to the animal. With a quiet sniff, the creature quickly snatched it from her tense hand with its teeth and scarfed it down. The Archangel watched with interest, hoping the animal wouldn't be harmed by her offering.

Apparently not, because as soon as it was finished, it looked back up at her with hopeful eyes. The Archangel glanced at the bag in her hand, then at the dog. She did not need rations, but looking at the dog's dull pelt color and mostly visible ribs, she decided he did. The assassin dumped the entire bag of jerky on the ground, watching with smiling eyes but not a smiling face.

After the dog finished, apparently satisfied, it rested its head on her thighs and stayed put. That wouldn't be a problem. It was only 4 in the afternoon, and she had no reason to leave before 11. It would be monotonous, she thought to herself. But monotonous was her life.
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The dog, after a basically one sided conversation, had no name. She couldn't wholly communicate with animals, but she could sense them, in a way, sense their feelings and put it into words for them.
She'd only discovered that today, which was pleasant. The woman did not really understand why the ability to communicate with animals was needed, but she chose not to question it.

Digging deep into the corners of her mind, she looked down at the dog, who had abandoned sitting it's head on her lap for just laying on her altogether. She gladly allowed it, as the smell of stray dog would very much cover up her own for her mission to come. The Soldier was no lycan, but if she reeked of blood and ice, he would know. She only came up with one thing; a distant nickname, so faint and out of context she could only imagine that it had been the name of one of her previous commanders: Jelly. It wasn't even a proper name, but the dog didn't mind, because he licked her face after she managed to get it through to him.

A sharp tick from the clock on the wall drew her away from her newfound friend, and as she glanced up, face blank, she saw that it was time for her to go. With dismay radiating off of her, the dog whined, burying itself deeper into her clothes despite the probable smell of blood and bleach that would be threaded into it.

The woman had no idea if she could teleport with the dog, if their atoms could even handle that type of dismantling and then reforming. The Archangel, however, came up with an idea.

With soft breaths and nonsense words, baby talk, as some called it, she somehow explained what they were to do—and what Jelly had to do. So, the dog curled up as much as a dog that big could, close and impossibly warm, and she closed her eyes and focused, focused on the opposite corner of the room as if she were already there- and with a whoosh, she was, and Jelly was with her too, although there was a bit of tail fur missing. He didn't seem to mind. The woman did not smile, the Archangel did not smile, but she let the end of her mouth curl up a bit before she abandoned the dog in the corner to retrieve her backpack from the opposite corner.

Dark, unfiltered moonlight came in through the window, catching her square in the face as she smoothly lifted the backpack onto her shoulder. She could feel her body responding, cringing away, a bit, because she hadn't been exposed to much natural light.

She didn't know how she knew that.

The Archangel returned to her dog companion, bent down and held him. The soft, reassuring fur lead her to believe that the transition of the Borough would be swift, and that her new friend, Jelly, would not be harmed. The Archangel knew that that was an unintelligent hope, but this was concerning a mere animal, and so she did not correct herself with what she normally would've done.

The Archangel remembered the abandoned cabin there quite well- her commander had told her that she had been there once before for a mission concerning a level one target, a former Agent who had, expectedly, gone crazy and began babbling away secrets to whoever would listen. Pity was not something she could feel, but she did spare him a painful death. An easy pull of the trigger, a release of her breath.

She could feel her body come undone, traveling through the cold air and she could distantly understand that Jelly was experiencing this, too—and then there was nothing. If she had been actually a physical being, she would've estimated it had taken her 9 minutes to get to the Northwestern Borough in the cold, refreshing state of Alaska.

She was very surprised to find a moose outside of the cabin. It simply turned away from her, sensing who, what she was. The large animal stalked away, haunches raised, and she watched until it's dark hide disappeared from sight. The Archangel still didn't understand why Jelly hadn't yet done the same, she had not compelled her fur-laden companion any further. With a sigh, she glanced down at her side, pleased to see Jelly whole and there. The dog looked up at her with bright brown eyes, panting gently. She opened the door with a twitch of her finger, not sensing anyone within the cabin, as to be expected.

"Now, Jelly, we have to find the Winter Soldier." And with that, woman and dog trekked to the inside of the cabin, both dirty, tired, and thoughtful. But only one of them would be sleeping.

As the Archangel pulled out maps, aliases, and everything Hydra had on the Winter Soldier, she could feel a sense of painful nostalgia creep up within her staring at the cold, blue eyes of the world's second deadliest assassin. Maybe she had met the soldier before, or maybe they had trained together, because she did not, could not know someone from a life before that didn't even exist.

A/N:
I hate Hydra. The Archangel didn't deserve this (I almost typed her real name, woops.)
So... Who do you guys think the nickname "Jelly" belonged to?
Why do you think an assassin as independent as the Archangel would willingly accept a partner of any species?