Red Skull quietly let Karpov sweat more after the man tried to reason for his life.  Gently letting the barrel tip of the gun sway, just rubbing against the lining of Karpov’s jaw.  Staring a hole through him as he did so.

“Hmm...”  Red Skull finally let slip.  Finally he started to holster his gun away.  “I suppose you are correct... on some fronts at least.”  Red Skull noted as he finally started to look away.  “I suppose I was even being a bit hasty in my assessment of the situation even...”

Before Karpov could respond however.  Red Skull clinched his jawline with a hand very tight.  Bringing his face up to the red masked face of his own.  “However... I am going to give you a week to find him.  If by this time next week he is not back within our control.  I am going to have you killed.  Not only that, but I am going to have my finest men kill you as slowly as possible.  Breaking off finger after finger, toe after toe.  In the meantime if you’d like to start organizing search parties by all means!  Because if you don’t... you will be brought back here, and you will learn just how cruel I can be.”  Red Skull didn’t even wait for a response from Karpov before shoving him away.  “I’d suggest starting quickly.”

~Six Days Later~

 The blanket wrapped around her was starting to smell on its nearly week long duty of being wrapped around Stephanie Rogers.  She hadn’t washed the pajamas she had on.  Hell she hasn’t showered either.  She couldn’t do anything that wasn’t watching all kinds of movies.  A year or two ago, for Christmas.  The rest of the Avengers bought her a massive collection of movies on DVD and blu-rays, as well as a player for all of it.  Sure Tony got a headache from Stephanie trying to figure out how to operate all of it.  But Stephanie has always wanted to just sit down and marathon all of the movies.

Of course she never wanted it under these circumstances at all.  Her heart couldn’t do anything but ache.  She hasn’t smiled once, why would she?  The only person who had her back was a murderer now.  Stephanie Rogers couldn’t handle it, so she locked herself away.  She hasn’t left her apartment, she hasn’t said a word to either The Avengers or SHIELD.  Any times they called her she left them with her voice mail.  She couldn’t do anything anymore, so she hid herself away.