Chapter One
Fury had called her in. So here she was. On a helicarrier, waiting for orders. She couldn't believe it. Clint was compromised. Clint Barton. Hawkeye. That's all Fury had told her when he called her back from her small vacation time.
She was sitting at the table just behind Fury's viewing station, her eyes closed. She must look pretty odd, considering she wasn't wearing her usual suit. Everyone had seen her in her tight green cat suit, not too similar to her best friend's suit, Black Widow.
Alexandra was different to everyone else. She had powers. Her codename was 'Mother Nature', because she could control the elements. Fire, Earth, Water, Air…all under her control. Yet that wasn't all she could do. She had super strength, increased intelligence, increased speed, and the ability to fly and heal surface wounds faster than the human race, not to mention immortality.
She wasn't a mutant though. She was a demi-goddess of Olympia.
Alexandra had been born of Zeus, the father of Gods and Men, and Leda, the mortal wife of Spartan King Tyndareus. Back then she had been given the name Helen. She chose the guise of Alexandra in the First World War when she had worked as a nurse on the front line. The name meant 'Defender of Mankind' in Greek, so she thought it was fitting.
She'd been hired by S.H.I.E.L.D when the group had first started (though she barely looked a day past thirty) to use her powers to protect mankind under the governments guidance. She'd worked with Natasha (Black Widow), and Clint (Hawkeye), since she had recruited them, taking out threats to the human race. She was closer to Clint than Natasha. They had an understanding. Both Alexandra and Clint secretly craved a connection that only the other could provide, but they weren't together. It was purely physical for the both of them. There was no denying that there was a lot of affection between the two S.H.I.E.L.D agents, but neither of them would admit to love. That was a luxury neither of them could afford.
Both had experienced the bitterness of love before.
Alexandra had loved a prince in the early years of her existence. He was very handsome, and their love was beautiful, but, as it turned out, deadly to all around them. She had been married to the King of Sparta, Menelaus, and she had despised him beyond all belief. So when she fell in love with Paris of Troy, she let him steal her away. Zeus had been furious at her for being the cause of a war, when she had been conceived to protect the Earth, but he had understood when she told him how terrible Menelaus had been to her. The Trojans had ended up losing the war, and their home, but Paris had made sure that she had escaped the city along with the rest of the royals. Paris was murdered by Agamemnon, the brother of Alexandra's husband. Alexandra was heartbroken, but she was forced to live on without him, as per the instructions of her father.
Clint Barton had his own tragic love in the form of S.H.I.E.L.D agent Bobbi Morse, or the Mockingbird, whom he had married a couple years after they were formally brought into S.H.I.E.L.D after the Academy. Their romance was short-lived when a particularly bad mission ended with Agent Morse sacrificing her life in order to save his. Clint has never really moved past the guilt that came with her death.
Now, Clint was being used as an Asgardian gods lap-dog, and Alexandra was pissed. She was unable to contact the Olympian gods, nor the Asgardian gods, and that made her even more pissed. When they caught Loki, she would replace the blood in his body with a fire that would torment him until he died from the excruciating pain.
Alexandra was torn from her morbid thoughts by the footsteps of people approaching where she was sitting. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner. She'd read their files on her tablet on her journey to the base.
Fury approached them, taking the ten dollars the Captain wordlessly offered him, before approaching Banner, knowing that Alexandra was scrutinizing his every move.
"Doctor, thank you for coming." Fury said, holding his hand out to shake Banner's.
"Thank you for asking nicely. So how long am I staying?" Banner asked. Alexandra scrutinized him. He seemed like a nervous man. His body language gave that away; he would rub his hands together, constantly distribute his weight from foot to foot, and his eyes darted everywhere. He certainly looked like a man who had spent some of his life on the run from the U.S Army.
"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind." Fury replied, sounding honest. Alexandra knew better. Fury needed Banner for more than just locating the cube. He also secretly wanted the giant green monster Banner could turn into when provoked.
"Where are you with that?" Banner asked.
Fury pointed over at Coulson, who, along with Hill, was supervising the other agents while they searched the globe for Barton, Loki, Doctor Selvig and the Tesseract.
"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible computer on the planet. Cell phones, laptops…" Coulson trailed off. Alexandra's eyes lapsed on Natasha, who had bent down to look at one of the screens that had Clint's face on.
"If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."
"That's still not going to find them in time." Natasha said.
"You have to narrow your field," Banner said. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
"How many are there?" Fury asked.
"Call every laboratory you know," Banner instructed Coulson, as he shrugged off his jacket. "Tell them to put the spectrometers up on the roof, and calibrate them for gamma rays."
Banner kept talking, but Alexandra's eyes had narrowed onto the screen with Clint's face on and she'd zoned out, thinking about what he was doing now. She knew that when she found him, and beaten the mind control from him, he'd probably hate himself for whatever he managed to do whilst under it. And she'd be there for him: friend, lover, and confidante…whatever he needed.
"Agent Cosmos, could you show Dr Banner to his laboratory, please? Agent Cosmos will be working alongside you, Dr Banner. She has PhDs in astrophysics, applied science, astronomy, quantum mechanics, and psychology. She'll be a lot of use to you."
Alexandra climbed to her feet, and noticed that Captain America had suddenly decided to look her over. She was wearing a green goddess-inspired dress, a white lab coat, and black lace-up stiletto boots that stopped at her ankle. In her hand was her tablet, which she never let out of her sight when she wasn't away on missions.
"You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys." Alexandra said, brushing past Fury, and gesturing for Banner to follow her.
When she walked through the hall to the lab, she noticed the barely hushed whispering by all the agents she passed. They knew that she was highly skilled at what she did, temperamental, as unpredictable as the weather and deadly. Most of all deadly. They were as afraid of her as they were Agent Romanoff. The whispering didn't escape Banner's notice, but he didn't say anything until they were in the lab.
"What's with all the whispering and terrified looks, Doctor Cosmos? I thought they were aimed at me, until I noticed they…weren't." Banner said, as Alexandra showed him all the gadgets they had at their exposal.
Alexandra sighed. She'd been hoping to avoid this, but she might as well explain to someone who gets it.
"I'm one of S.H.I.E.L.D's best agents. I'm dangerous. And the other agents don't have the clearance to know exactly what I can do. They know that Agent Romanoff is skilled with a gun and knives and can manipulate anyone into telling her what she needs to know. They know that Agent Barton is the best archer this world has seen. They don't know exactly what I'm capable of. Just whispers." Alexandra explained, connecting her computer to her tablet in case she got called away.
"So what are you capable of?" Banner asked, as he started his own work.
"I'm not really good with my temper. Makes it worse when I can control the elements. My codename is Mother Nature. And I'm just as unpredictable. That makes me deadly." Alexandra said, keeping her eyes away from the doctor as she started calibrating the spectrometers using the giant touch screen monitor.
"I know how that feels," Bruce said, shaking his head. "How'd you get your powers?"
"I was conceived by the Greek god, Zeus, and a mortal woman, Leda during the Age of Heroes in Greece, thus making me a demi-goddess. My father gave me of protector of the Earth. That mission is proving…difficult."
"You're Helen of Troy? The Helen of Troy? And you've been alive for the past three thousand or so years protecting the planet?"
"Yes. My father loves this planet. Loves the human race. He wants it protected from internal and external threats. Thus, I was conceived, and given the power to control the elements which, at the time, were my most useful weapons. As time has passed, technology improved, I found myself looking for help in saving this planet. That's when S.H.I.E.L.D stepped in. They were looking for individuals to become the first S.H.I.E.L.D team after World War II. I was recruited, and became a founding member. They sent me on missions, honed my skills with a gun and with knives. But my favorite way to kill someone was something I'd perfected. Nature is cruel, and I was crueler," Alexandra said, turning to face Bruce, a stoic expression removing any emotion from her face. "I was the one who recruited Barton. And while I trained him, sanded down his rough edges and made him a great agent, he helped me get a lid on my own anger. He's the closest thing I have to a best friend. I'm looking for the Tesseract, so I can take down Loki and bring Barton back to where he belongs."
"With S.H.I.E.L.D or with you? You talk as though you have feelings for him?" Banner prodded into her personal life. He knew he shouldn't of, but the words somehow managed to tumble out of his mouth before he could stop them.
"I'm not allowed the luxury of love, Doctor Banner. My life isn't exactly simple."
"No one's ever is."
"How about we find this Tesseract, huh, Doc?"