0.1 | Look into my eyes

SAMUAL HIGGINS FINISHED RECORDING HIS RESULTS FOR THE DAY AND CLOSED HIS MANILA FILE.

His cautious gaze swept around the lab to make sure that everything was kept in it's rightful place.

'Microscope', he muttered to himself, eying the particular instrument while checking it off from a list of objects inside his head.

'Wind-' He trailed off, not fully completing the word as he noticed the slight breeze coming from behind him.

That's weird, he pondered, narrowing his eyes in on the curtains that were billowing in the breeze, the windows very clearly open.

I remember closing the window before I started the experiment.

He hastily closed the window, and- just to make sure -pulled his keys out from his pocket and locked it.

With one last skeptical glance at the lab, Samual Higgins walked out into the foyer and made his way to his cosy one bedroom apartment.

What he didn't notice, however, was the tracker that now sat in his left coat pocket undetected.

Nor did he notice the sly agent hiding in his garage that had been tracking him all this time.

- - - -

When Samual first put his toast into the toaster, he noticed the cupboard door was slightly ajar.

Squinting at the peculiar mistake, he made no noise as he tiptoed his way to it,

waited a few seconds, then screamed 'Ah huh!', while forcefully opening the door.

There was no one there.

There was, however, a note on the floor.

Samual peered at it, trying to process what it might be about, when he heard a shuffle of movement in his bedroom.

Without knowing what he was about to do, he screamed a battlecry and ran face first into a wall.

Not quite concerned about the previous events, Samual Higgins soon found himself in his bedroom, looking at the dresser, the bed, and then, eventually, the window.

However, he wasn't aware of the person hanging from the ceiling fan, holding a tranquilliser gun, eyes alert and ready.

The agent's fingers grazed the trigger haphazardly, almost as if they were greeting an old friend.

The agent made no sound as it perched there, stroking the gun occasionally, itching to shoot Samual Higgins and get the mission over with.

Of course, all missions happen to have a down-fall, a simple mistake or error that proves the participant reckless or irresponsible.

Alas, it was this reason that the agent on top of the ceiling fan, started to scold herself for her wrong doings.

With the agent loosing focus of Samual, who now stood gawking up at the unexpected woman situated atop his ceiling fan, she repositioned her gun and begun to take aim.

- - - -

With the agent zeroing in on Samual, the masked assassin saw her chance.

And, after looking both ways across the abandoned neighbourhood, the masked assassin flyspringed in front of the one bedroom apartment in North Carolina.

Why?

Because she could.

She jumped up the black, narrow fire escape and gripped the sturdy pole with both hands, hooked her legs around it and hoisted herself inch by inch closer to the upstairs window.

Balancing on the windowsill, she swiftly removed a single bobbypin from her hair, before picking the lock on the window.

She gingerly peeled back the curtains as she moved the window up a fraction. She placed her rifle along the window sill, and, balancing on one leg, she took aim at the agent's slim figure.

The masked assassin shifted her weight to her other foot, as she waited one second, two seconds, and finally, three seconds before she hastily pressed the trigger.

A shout came from within the room, followed by the sound of a body slumped against a wall.

The masked assassin didn't risk being discovered, so without a sound, she retreated away from the house, marvelling at how easy her mission had been, not knowing that she had failed.

For her mission was to kill Natasha Romanov, and little did she know,

she was still very much alive.

-    - - -

Before the agent, now identified as Natasha Romanov, could take fire, she ducked down, noticing the rifle aimed at her head, waiting for a clear shot.

A single bullet rung out into the night, and fortunately for Natasha, she had ducked at the right time, the bullet whizzing past her head and into the cupboard behind her.

Natasha found a clear shot as she fired a tranquilliser dart into the back of Samual's unsuspecting body.

As Samual's body slumped to the ground, wedged between his bed and the wall,

the rifle withdrew away from it's position on the window and into the night.

Natasha expertly leaped from the fan and in front of Samual, all in a matter of 0.4 seconds.

She heaved Samual's body over her shoulder as she checked for any evidence that she had come to this apartment.

When she was satisfied there was no evidence, she exited the one bedroom apartment and let out a sigh of relief.

The SHIELD agent then threw Samual's limp body into the passengers side of her BMW 4 silver convertible and speed off in the direction of SHIELD, her red hair blowing slightly in the wind behind her.