the one where they're good and bad guys, but mostly just superheroes

by anamatics

MCU-WH13 - A nightmare box is a device that can, in the absence of the magic, be used by a skilled alchemist to animate a golem. The Artificer is an ageless being, created by the nightmare box that she turns over to the Regent's DC-based retrieval team. As soon as the device is in their hands, someone is trying to take it from them once more. And then Myka meets Helena…

the one where they're good and bad guys, but mostly just superheroes

by anamatics

---

The first time Myka trips upwards and finds herself flying she's eight and fresh off a fight with Tracy over something that she scarcely remembers. She storms out and onto their balcony, looking out over the back alleyway and the building beyond and the ground just seems to fall away beneath her. She tumbles into the sky and screams again and again, for her father, for Tracy. She screams for help that doesn't come until she floats down to the ground in the middle of Palmer's Park.

She sits there in her socks and nightgown and cries until someone comes to find her. They take her home and no one ever speaks of where she's gone.

Myka doesn't fly for a long time after that.

They find her and tell her what she is in high school, when she's the nerdy girl tutoring the football team in math and science. They watch her as she reads books far too quickly and coax her into stepping up and into the sky once more. They don't know what exactly her gene is yet, but they know what she is even then.

And Myka's too afraid to admit it until much later.

She spends her senior year of high school at the Xavier Institute, learning how to control her abilities. They tell her parents that they're offering her a position because of her exceptional marks and her ability to comprehend information far above her learning level, and Myka's mom believes it. Tracy rolls her eyes and pops her gum and asks if she can have Myka's old essays from last year.

Myka's father knows.

Warren Bering looks at his daughter with sad eyes and tells her to learn how to blend in and to hide. She can't ever stand out, no one can ever know.

This was before the X-Men became a common place thing, when Tony Stark stood up before the world and declared himself Iron Man, before Captain America's return. This was a dark time where those who possessed mutant genes were forced into hiding, into lying. Myka learns the history of those who are different at Charles Xavier's school for people like her, but most importantly, she learns how to appear to be normal.

And it almost works out for her, getting her through college and recruited into the Secret Service. She blends in and looks, on paper at least; to be well qualified for the job she's been offered. The government had no policy on those who possessed mutant genes at that time, just a stiff-lipped denial and a refusal to admit that they even existed.

They didn't ask, Myka didn't tell.

Myka is, rather abruptly, recruited to join an analyst team that tracks down non-mutant disturbances across the country. They like her ability to analyze large amounts of information in her head, and her handiness in a firefight from above.

She spends hours in the air, shooting skeet and pretending like she could hit anything that moves from the sky, held steady on the wind. She likes to think of herself as an asset to the team, after all.

The team is Pete Lattimer, who is actually just a human. He's an ex-Marine still full of boyish wonder and he's great on the ground. He's the one that they turn to when they need help getting into places – he's Secret Service as well, far higher up the chain of command than Myka had ever dared advance.

After Pete there's Claudia Donovan, who's been poached right out from under Stark Industries' nose. She doesn't like to admit that, after hacking into MIT to enroll herself for free at sixteen, she's probably one of the smartest people in the world when it comes to computers. Stark Industries had wanted her, badly, for R and D, but the shadowy organization that heads up their unit had pulled some strings with the then-acting CFO, Mr. Stane and had gotten an agreement in place regarding Claudia's employment for the next five years.

"Circuits in her brain," Pete had said upon meeting her and watching as she ran her fingers along the back of her iPhone, coaxing information out of it that no one could possibly have ever achieved normally. "Freaky."

And then there's Artie, one of the old crowd, a first generation mutant. He's a former NSA analyst, a code breaker. He thinks in numbers, according to Claudia, and Myka thinks that that, in particular, is bizarre. Still, he's smart and a good boss and Myka's not about to say that she's glad that she can finally use her powers for good and not pointedly ignore them as she has spent most of her life doing.

And for a little while, it's good.

They hide in plain sight, blending in to a non-descript storefront with a back room full to the brim of the random junk that Artie's mutant ability almost seems to force him to collect. Claudia builds things out of it, and Myka spends a great deal of time pretending that she's just a normal person. They've set themselves up as a bookstore up front, and Myka knows books better than she knows almost anything else. It's easy to lapse into that mode, sometimes for days at a time, reading behind the counter and pretending that it's all going to be okay.

Pete drinks too much coffee and reads the paper, tutting at the reports of weapons buildups and the bizarre sort of arms race that's going on between Hammer Corp and Stark Industries at the moment. "It's stupid," Pete mutters into his coffee mug, before he sets the front page down and turns to the sports section. "Ooo, Tribe won again."

Pete's obsession with all things Cleveland-sports related has made him a sad, sad man indeed.

Somewhere along the way, they acquire enemies. Shadowy figures who use the objects that they seek for evil, rather than good. It sort of goes with the territory, Myka supposes, as they're almost a full team of superheroes, after a fashion.

There is one villain in particular that likes Myka most of all. They know next to nothing about her, just a name: the Artificer.

The Artificer comes in with the east wind like she's Mary Poppins in a cloud of do-anything-but-good, and uses one of their objects to blow up half a city block. They're lucky to even be in town, tracking down something else entirely, and they all pile into Pete's SUV, pulling up hoods and zipping up jump suits. Myka braids her hair quickly and efficiently, half-listening to Claudia as she complains (loudly) about the limitations of Pete's Jeep.

"I could make it so much better," Claudia whines, tugging at the straps to the harness that she's built for herself to help her scale walls tight and pulling on the rest of her jumpsuit on top of it. She glares at Pete in his rearview mirror and tugs her mask over her head. "It could be amazing."

"Nope," Pete says stubbornly. "My car, my rules."

"But it can't even fly!" Claudia protests. "It can't even take a bullet!"

And really, when Myka thinks about it, that might actually be a good thing to look into. They're encountering more and more resistance as their little band is recognized in the media as fighting 'strange occurrences.' Bullets haven't flown much, but it's been a close thing on a couple of occasions.

It's a shame, really; they were supposed to be covert. Or at least that's what Mrs. Frederic, Artie's boss, had promised Myka when she'd countered Nick Fury's offer with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Myka has a mask but she never wears it. She has a cowl that she tends to favor. Claudia designed their costumes one day when she got too bored and wanted to learn how to use the old sewing machine she'd found in Artie's bedroom. The cowl masks her eyes and covers the sides of her face. Her chin is visible, but that's about it. Myka likes it that way. She doesn't want them thinking she's a guy or something.

Not when she can step into the sky and rain carefully aimed hell on anyone who might dare to counter them.

Still, they all aren't who they say they are. Hiding in plain sight, pretending to be normal, not mutants, not extraordinarily gifted. They're just people.

They're just people who react incredibly viscerally when they see what the Artificer has done.

The entire street is gone, collapsed in rubble and terror. The air is choked with dust, and Myka ties a damp cloth around her neck that Claudia passes her from her bag and takes to the sky. She's got guns on both legs, watching the chaos underneath her carefully. They can't see anyone who's hurt, and it doesn't seem logical. They've never had one of theirs go off on this sort of a scale.

She's wondering if she should voice this question when she spots a woman's figure stumbling from the wreckage, a sparking bag not unlike the ones that Claudia and Artie have created to store their strange devices clutched in her hand. Myka squints and flies in a little closer, pulling her specially designed gun from the holster on her thigh and fiddling with the power settings. Low power, set phasers to stun.

She has got to stop lingering when Pete watches television.

The woman sets the bag down neatly on a wide piece of half-collapsed wall and bends, lifting up a corner of it with the sort of effortless ease that Myka's only ever seen a mutant possess. She lifts it up and pulls a broken and bleeding body, the one victim that Myka can readily see from her vantage point, from under the rubble. She's careful not to move his neck and it's then that Myka reaches to her ear and switches on her com unit.

"I think we need an ambulance," she says quietly, but she can already hear the siren in the distance.

The woman glances up and smiles prettily from beneath her mask, a simple quirk of lips that Myka can see at this great distance. Vision, flight, they're her powers. She's not unlike the ace she'd heard about when Nick Fury was trying to recruit her, only her powers aren't learned, they're just her ability. And she's pretty sure that The Hawk can't actually fly.

They don't have aliases, not really. They do have a cover story, but no one's caught them alone long enough to ask them who they are. They do their investigations in civilian form. Myka doesn't know what she'd call herself, wearing a mask and a jumpsuit like she is some sort of terrible Superman rip off. She resolves to think about it, and sticks with their codenames for now. They can never be sure, despite Claudia's assurances and the latest (hacked) Stark technology, that their coms aren't bugged.

"One," she says, and wishes that Pete wasn't one. She should be one; she's the one who does most of the fighting when they encounter trouble, after all. "Have you seen any other victims?"

"Negative, two," Pete replies. "Three?"

"Scans are clear, save that one that was just pulled from underneath that wa—did she just bag the artifact for us?" Claudia's voice sounds indignant and Myka can tell that she's using her laptop to zoom in and inspect the video feed off of the camera that's attached to Pete's bulletproof vest.

"Not sure," Myka says, "I'm going to get a better look."

She points herself downwards before Claudia can object and tell her the nine-million reasons why getting in close is a bad idea. They're not nearly prepared for such a confrontation, but Myka's impulsive and rash at times, and this is just going to have to be one of them.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to stay up there all day," the Artificer, when faced with Myka in full on combat, identity-concealing gear, is shorter than Myka'd expected. She's wearing boots with strange bronze contraptions implanted in the sides and a harness similar to Claudia's underneath a dark blue overcoat. Her mask is far different from Myka's own, obscuring all but her mouth, a comical hole at the base of the mask. Her eyes are covered by goggles that reflect the light of the day back at Myka. "He needs an ambulance."

"One's en route," Myka says, her gun pointed at the woman's head. Her hand doesn't shake and she's proud, she might actually be getting the hang of this superhero stuff. "Why did you do this?"

"Really, darling, no one's around to get hurt. I hadn't…" the Artificer looks down at the groaning man on ground beside her. "I did not realize that he was outside when I triggered your artifact. I do believe that your mutant archivist will be grateful for it – this one's quite nasty." She indicates the static bag and the small device with a careful jut of her chin and the goggles reflect the sunlight that's starting to filter through the dust and the rubble straight into Myka's eyes.

Myka's free hand flies up to shield her vision but when she lowers it, the Artificer is gone, two round circles in the dust where she stood the only sign she was ever even there.

"Damnit," Myka curses quietly under her breath, and bends to attend to the victim.

Artie is beside himself when they get back and tell him what the Artificer did, until he gets a good look at the artifact that she's bagged and all the color drains from his usually expressive face. "This shouldn't exist," he mutters, watching as it floats in the air between his fingers.

"Uh, newsflash," Claudia says from behind her desk, "None of this stuff should."

"No..." Artie trails off and turns, reaching for his glasses and their bulkier office communicator. He jams them onto his nose and takes a deep breath before switching the communicator on.

Myka leans forward to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Frederic on the other end, looking stern and terrifying as always. She bids him good morning and demands to know what the hell happened on their retrieval.

"Can't explain that now," Artie says breathlessly. "We've got another player, Mrs. Frederic."

"Yes, the Artificer, I heard that she blew up have a city block and your agents let her escape," Mrs. Frederic's voice is coolly neutral, but Myka feels the shame burn at her cheeks. She can't really say, exactly, why she didn't try to apprehend the woman immodestly upon sighting her. Perhaps she's just as intrigued as the Artificer as the Artificer is with her.

"Yes, but that's not important right now," Artie is clearly frustrated at her criticism, but wants to tell her something else that's more important. "Look," he spins his communicator around to face the artifact that the Artificer has uncovered for them.

Even from where she's standing, Myka can hear Mrs. Frederic's sharp intake of breath. Artie spins the screen back towards himself and raises his eyebrows. "If the Artificer knows, who else does? I know Fury would kill to get his hands on something like this, but the Artificer left it for us. Why?"

"I think your bigger concern is how the Artificer knew about it in the first place." Mrs. Frederic replies.

"So what exactly is that thing?" Pete asks as soon as Artie appears to be approachable again. It's the question that's on all of their minds, but it's Pete that asks. It's always Pete that asks, Pete that sticks his foot in his mouth, Pete who ignores social decorum and charms his way into their hearts almost effortlessly.

"It's a nightmare box," Artie says and he sounds almost wistful. "They're not supposed to exist outside of legend." Artie's abilities lie in finding patterns, in dissecting just how it is that things work. He could figure this thing out, Myka knows, and she steps forward. Her fingers close around the box and she plucks it from mid-air and tucks it back into the static bag they've been keeping it in. The Artificer's static bag.

Myka knows the story of the nightmare box and it's a scary one. A remnant of the age of alchemists and their never-ending quest to turn lead into gold; it's a device that can create golems.

And it was never supposed to exist at all.

"Why did the Artificer leave it for us?" Myka asks quietly.

There is no answer, because there never is. It's their job to find the answers.

Their bookstore gets customers so infrequently that sometimes they catch themselves forgetting that it's still open to the public. On one such morning, Claudia has a triple-shot of espresso sitting steaming on the counter as she recalibrates a pair of night-vision goggles. Myka is moving around a display of best sellers, pausing to write little personalized reviews underneath one, and Pete is crowing happily about the fact that the Indians are into the playoffs and the Yanks are out.

Someone else has to win sometimes, right?

Myka's lips quirk up into a small smile as Claudia rolls her eyes and goes back to jabbing the goggles with a screwdriver. They've learned, by now, to accept the fact that Pete's obsessed with Ohio and thinks it's the best place on earth. Claudia thinks organized sports are a waste of time, but Myka's not so sure. Before things got really awful at home, she'd had the Rockies and the Avalanche. She loves hockey still, even if they are rarely home for her to watch it.

She bends, fiddling with the placard that she'd setting up when they hear a sound that makes them all jump as one. There's a clatter as Claudia's modification project is swept up and into the drawer beneath the counter and Pete folds his newspaper down to peer through the bright morning sunlight at the intruder.

"Are you open?" There's a woman at the door, a messenger bag slung over her shoulder and in an old bomber jacket on that looks as though it's seen far better days. Myka's eyes narrow, assessing for a threat, but she sees none, just a woman who wants to treat their business as what it appears to be.

"Sure are," she covers before Claudia can say anything. She sets down her pen and stack of placards on the display table and steps forward. "Can I help you find anything?"

The woman smiles, all dark hair and vaguely English charm. Myka feels her cheeks flush. "I do believe you can."

All of the books that they have on Jewish and Eastern European mysticism are open across the low table at the front of the store, as well as a their newcomer's well-thumbed copy of the Bible and what Myka can only assume as a Torah in its original Hebrew. She can't help but notice that there's no English or phonetic translation beside the letters, and she's actually a little impressed as she watches their guest take notes.

She's already paid for all the books, their first sale of the week, all on a Black AmEx that felt like lead in Myka's fingers. Her name is Helena Wells, and she signs her name in perfect cursive.

"What are you researching?" Myka asks, scooting into the arm chair next to her and trying to appear to be conversational.

Helena looks at her for a long moment, before setting down a moleskine journal on the table before her that is full of the same rows and rows of that same perfect script. She smiles then, bright and friendly. "I'm a writer," she explains, tapping the journal with one blunted fingernail. Myka follows the motion and forces herself to not read what's written there. It isn't for her eyes. "I've been all over the city looking for resources on this problem. My story, you see, is about a djin who befriends a golem."

Myka thinks that it sounds fascinating. She holds out her hand, "I'm Myka," she says. "And I would love to hear more."

"Helena," comes the reply, and Helena's hand is warm in Myka's own. Almost too warm, a nagging voice at the back of her mind intones. Myka ignores it and smiles brightly, shaking Helena's hand. "And if you don't mind, this is a wonderful window and I'd be forever in your debt if you'd allow me to linger for a while." She leans forward, her voice growing low and conspiratorial, "And I'll tell you all about it."

Helena comes 'round for the next few days, sometimes bringing coffee for all of them with her. Myka finds herself leaning in close and smiling at her, reading the mythology and helping their other, rare, customers. She knows that Artie doesn't like this intrusion into their sanctuary, but they have to maintain their cover. So Myka plays the shop girl and Pete and Claudia go out on an away mission for Artie, looking into the bank where the Artificer found the nightmare box.

The days seem to blur together. Artie putters around in the back of the shop, and Myka finds herself in the same trap as always. Caught, desperately longing for the one thing she knows that she cannot have. They are not allowed a simple life, for they are the things in the night that bump back.

Artie catches her, leaning against the doorway that separates the bookshop from their base of operation, watching Helena as she taps a pen against her moleskine. His eyes are sad and his fingers are slowly solving a rubix cube, another manifestation of his abilities. "You like her," he says quietly.

Myka bites her lip and shakes her head. "I know," she relies. They have a rule; their work has to be secret, it must come first. There's no escaping it, not for anyone. She must be content to watch this intriguing woman from afar.

Even if it cuts her up inside to do so.

"We," Claudia announces the next morning, "Have a tail." She sets down a print out in front of each of them and then moves to the center of the table. "Granted, it's a digital one and a super stealthy one at that, but it's definitely a tail which means that since I started to gather information on the nightmare box, someone has picked up on it and is now attempting to hack my system."

Pete peers over his paper. "Are they gonna get in?" he asks and Myka can hear the skepticism in his voice.

A scandalized look crosses Claudia's face and she shakes her head vehemently to the negative. "Absolutely not." She folds her arms across her chest, overlarge sweater slipping over one shoulder. "The guy's a full human; he's not as highly evolved as I am."

"Careful, Claudia," Artie says quietly from behind the stack of papers he's got scattered across his desk. "There are people who wouldn't take too kindly to hearing someone in your position quote a man such as that."

The man they're speaking of doesn't need to be named, and Myka knows his thoughts on mutants well. She doesn't know if she agrees with all of them, but she thinks he has a point about how mutants are the next step, rather than an abnormality, in human evolution.

"Soooo," Pete says after the silence descends upon them. "I take it that someone wants the nightmare box, other than the Artificer."

Myka opens her mouth to interject that the Artificer gave them the nightmare box, so clearly she doesn't want it, but one look at Artie's face makes her close it once more. She can't appear to be taking sides, not right now. She's not even sure that there is a side to take right now, they're still so deep in the information-gathering stage of their process that there is no clear hero and villain of the story.

Artie pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "It would appear that way," he replies.

On her next mission, Myka comes face to face with the Artificer again.

It turns out that they'd actually been on the trail of it before the Artificer had so kindly left it for them to find. The young man that had been pulled from underneath the rubble had a strange tattoo on his wrist that Claudia was able to trace to a warehouse a little ways outside Cheyenne, Wyoming. Pete and Myka fly out, with Claudia staying behind to run tech interference on the warehouse's computers and security systems remotely.

They scramble to the building and Myka alights to the roof, her feet barely touching the ground before she feels a hand close on her shoulder and she's forced down and out of the way of hail of bullets.

The Artificer has her finger pressed to her lips before Myka's mouth is fully open to protest being yanked around like a rag doll. The woman is far stronger than she looks.

"Quiet, darling, they know you're here." The Artificer speaks in a crisp, posh-sounding British accent, but there's something about her that strikes Myka as odd. There's an almost familiar tone to it, in the way that the Artificer is leaning protectively over her. Her lips, the only part of her face that Myka can see, are quirked upwards into an amused-looking smile and she smells of motor oil and coffee.

And Myka dives away and off the warehouse roof because she doesn't know what to make of this woman acting so protective of her. The Artificer blew up an entire city block just to give them the nightmare box, and now she's protecting Myka. She's not sure what it all means and she hates how conflicted it's making her feel.

Myka falls through a volley of bullets and twists herself to fly forward once more. She slams the bug that Claudia wanted planted onto the first cluster of wires she sees, grabs Pete and gets the hell out of there. As the ground falls away beneath her feet and Pete squawks indignantly into her com, all that Myka can think of is the Artificer's body protectively over her own, keeping her safe until the guns stopped firing.

Later, when she and Pete are debriefing with Artie and Claudia's happily hacking into a fairly unprotected computer signal, Pete turns to her. "What the hell has you so spooked, Mykes?" he asks. His eyes are wide and fearful.

Looking down at her hands, Myka finds that she doesn't have an answer.

Mrs. Frederic shows up the next Tuesday when Helena is conspicuous in her absence from the wide front window of the bookstore. She has a briefcase full of information on the nightmare box, and they all gather around Artie's paper-strewn desk reading the information that she's been able to provide them. They all know that it's been obtained from the shadowy organization that runs their team, as well as provides back up to S.H.I.E.L.D. and probably the FBI and CIA as well; but they know better than to ask questions.

They've all been given a second chance in this group, working for Frederic's people. Sometimes the secrecy and subterfuge bothers Myka, but she's more preoccupied with the mission most of the time. There's something about the nightmare box that is currently sitting in the vault beneath the bookstore that sets her teeth on edge.

A nightmare box, the research tells them, is an ancient device originating in Kiev, but was seen again in Prague and then again in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw before it completely vanished from record. There was speculation at the time, that it was found by the Nazis and that Captain America had destroyed it when he took out Johann Schmitt and HYDRA, according to the papers that Frederic's brought them.

Myka chews on her lip and her finger trails along the page, reading the story of a fifteenth-century Jewish alchemist who'd mistakenly created the box. He'd been trying to turn lead into gold, as were most of the alchemists of the day, but something had gone horribly wrong. The language is dated and Myka has a hard time following what exactly went on, but she has a pretty good idea that what happened was no accident. In the alchemist's writing, he spoke of another device that he'd used to heat the lead he was attempting to transform into gold.

"So it creates golems?" Pete asks, blinking at the paper in his hands. "Like Lord of the Rings…?"

"More like The Thing," Myka says absently, but looks up sharply when she hears Pete's sharp intake of breath. Sometimes she forgets that the year she spent at Charles Xavier's school isn't exactly on the books anywhere. No one on the team, probably save Mrs. Frederic, knows more about the mutants and the scientifically mutated of this world than she does. And unlike their boss, Myka doesn't exactly share her knowledge willingly. She doubts that Ben Grimm will appreciate her spilling his secrets when she's not supposed to know them in the first place.

"So like… big scary rock guys?" Pete clarifies.

"Yes, Lattimer," Mrs. Frederic says with an exasperated. "Only when in a more controlled environment, a golem appears to be just a normal person."

"Well that's going to make this interesting, isn't it?" Pete jokes and they all murmur and nod their agreement.

The bug that Myka's placed on the warehouse in Wyoming has gotten them some good intel, and Claudia spends a good portion of Wednesday and Thursday hacking through shell corporations, trying to find out where the money's coming from. Pete bets Myka that it's somehow all going to come back to Stark Industries, because that company's beyond evil.

Having met both Stark and his CFO Mr. Stane personally while working a security detail at a congressional fundraiser, Myka is inclined to agree. She cannot wait until Stark's kid figures out that Stane's as evil as he is, because it's almost comical to an outside observer. The writing's on the wall, clear as day, and Stark Industries, which was once a great innovator, is now the largest weapons manufacturer in the world and it's only a matter of time until that comes around to bite them in the ass.

Still, taking money from Pete is a habit that Myka likes to be in regularly and often, so she smiles politely and shakes on the bet.

"Well color me surprised," Myka says on Saturday when they open up the shop clutching mammoth cups of coffee. They've been up half the night traipsing through the backwoods of Wyoming, tracking down a person that they think might be connected to the Artificer. What they've found instead is another shady organization that looks to be the one that's funding the warehouse that Myka'd bugged. The code name is A to Z Technologies and Claudia's sure that it's just another front, but it seems to be the end of the line.

They've had next-to-no sleep but they have to maintain their cover and everyone knows it so Myka brews extra strong coffee and Pete runs down to the bank around the corner and comes back with twenty bucks that he slaps into Myka's hand as she opens the door for him.

"Did you lose a bet, Pete?" Helena asks from her spot by the window. She's brought tea today and looks as tired as they are, although she's far perkier than Myka feels at the moment so Myka's just hiding behind the counter by the register and wondering if she can set up an IV drip of caffeine.

Pete grins sheepishly at Helena and shrugs. "I should know better."

Yes, Myka thinks. He really should.

Myka comes into work two days later to find Mrs. Frederic, Claudia and Artie sitting around Artie's desk pouring over reports of some sort. She gets her coffee and comes to stand behind Claudia, reading over her shoulder. "There was a break in at the London facility?" she asks quietly, and Claudia jumps about a foot in the air.

"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me," Claudia hisses quietly to Myka as she passes Myka the report and ducks over to her computer. "It's the only one of our facilities that's ours alone and has the capabilities of housing an object like the nightmare box. And yeah, I'm sure that's what they were looking for."

Artie makes a vague gesture to Myka and flips his report around. "Does this woman look familiar to you?" he asks quietly. "She's the one who did the break in, we think."

Myka cannot place the face, but there's something familiar about her. She taps the picture and turns to Claudia. "Can you run her through facial recognition?"

"It's been running for an hour already," Claudia replies.

"Narrow it down to federal employees, would you?" Myka chews on the inside of her cheek and stares down at the grainy photograph. "I could have sworn I've seen this woman before." She flips the picture back over to Artie and turns to the report. The report talks about how the facility was broken into but nothing was taken as the intruder was driven off by a second intruder.

Strange…

They follow the trail to a woman with blond hair and the most obnoxiously fake southern accent that Myka's ever heard. She's FBI, but Artie's met her exactly one and says that her pattern is all off and she cannot possibly work for them.

Myka is inclined to believe him when Mrs. Frederic comes in not long after their first meeting, her dark skin almost ashen as she grabs Myka and Pete and pulls them into the back room, ignoring Helena as she taps away on a laptop. "Theodora Stanton is dead," she says, and Artie's hands fly to his mouth.

Theodora Stanton, they're told, was one of their 'shadowy overlords' (as Claudia put it), or a Regent. She is one of the so-called normal people that govern over the artifacts that they find so as to keep them out of the hands of governments and superheroes. Apparently they missed the fact that Pete, Myka and Claudia? They're pretty big damn heroes when they want to be.

"Who killed her?" Claudia asks.

They know that she was tortured, her fingernails were gone and there were drill marks on her leg from the crime scene photos. But she drowned and there was no water at the scene in her lungs.

"Sally Stukowski was seen on a CCTV camera from a bank across the street from her home," Claudia announces three hours later, and Myka pulls her cowl over her head. They have a mission now.

They collect artifacts because artifacts shouldn't exist. They can't do anything about actual mutants or true super-powered individuals. That's usually when Myka calls the number that's been programmed into her phone since she started working under Mrs. Frederic. The man on the other end has a pleasant voice and calms her down when she's under fire from a chick who can shoot fire from her eyeballs or however the hell she's doing it.

"I was told to call you if our team ever encountered a mutant on retrieval," Myka begins, breathless as she ducks behind an awning and reloads her gun. "My name is Myka Bering, Secret Service."

"We both know you don't work for them anymore, Agent Bering," the man on the other end replies with an amused chuckle. "And we've been tracking Ms. Stukowski for some time now, ever since your head spoke to my director and told us to look into A to Z Technologies."

Myka bites back a curse and launches herself into the air, her phone clutched to one ear as she twists, her feet up by her ears just for a second as she falls before she starts to fly once more. She levels her gun and aims, exhales, and shoots Sally Stukowski in the shoulder. She doesn't trust the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on the other end of the line, but she'll play along. "Look, agent…"

"Coulson," he supplies with a pleasant sounding voice. It's almost conversational and Myka jackknives backwards her body to get away from another volley of fireballs. "And I understand, but this is just how we operate. There's a dossier with your Ms. Donovan as we speak."

"And Sally?" Myka asks, landing on a rooftop and glaring down at the woman, who's apparently lost her in the sun. Her eyes narrow as she watches Sally Stukowski clutch at her arm and howls in indignation as Pete jumps her from behind and pulls a static bag over her head so that she can't see and hopes that the neutralizing filed contained within it will be enough to keep her from using her powers.

"She'll be taken care of, Agent Bering."

Myka hangs up and jumps off the building to go and meet Pete. She's sure that S.H.I.E.L.D. will allow them access if they need it, but she wants absolutely nothing to do with this woman every again. She's proven that she's insane enough to attack their group – or that her employer is, at least. Myka isn't sure any more.

Helena is always there these days, and one day she leans against the counter, her bag slung over her shoulder. She smiles charmingly at Myka, eyes twinkling mischievously as she asks Myka if she wants to go out for a drink.

She says yes because it seems like the right thing to do, gathering up her jacket and heading out into the late autumn air. She trails half a step behind Helena, unable to shake the nervousness at the pit of her stomach. Helena is a very attractive woman, charming and intriguing in her own right. Myka's stuck, clamming up as she finds herself staring what could be a good thing in the face.

She can never tell, those are the rules. People like her aren't accepted in society. Sure, there are the occasional news reports of mutants doing things that could be considered heroic, but there aren't enough of them in the public eye to make Myka confident that she'll be safe.

"You're a million miles away, Myka," Helena says, pausing on the sidewalk and falling back to walk beside Myka. "Do you not want to do this? I don't want to pressure you."

Shaking her head, Myka catches a curl at the corner of her eye and tucks it back behind her ear. Her glasses slip a little ways down her nose and she goes slightly cross-eyed, a silly smile on her face as she looks at Helena. "I want to do this," she says firmly. "I was just caught up in thinking about what it means."

Helena tosses her head back and laughs and its full and sounds amazing. Her hair spills like an inky black waterfall across her back, glowing in the late afternoon sunlight. Her fingers tangle in Myka's and Myka doesn't pull away.

Later that night when they're both a little tipsy, Helena leans in and kisses Myka and it's hot and fast and everything that Myka's always wanted. She tangles her fingers in Helena's hair and tries to push their bodies impossibly closer together, in this dark corner of a hole-in-the-wall college bar, not knowing when she'll get a chance to do this again.

There's a nagging sense of doubt that plagues her still, as Helena's hands touch her in places that she hasn't been touched in what feels like ages. Like she's betraying someone important.

They're sent on an away mission the next morning. Claudia's found a decent lead to A to Z Technologies in Sioux Falls, and they're piling into their rented van before Myka even has time to think and dig her phone out of her bag and send Helena a quick text. Artie's still at the shop, so she supposes that he'll make excuses for her not being around, however, it still bothers her that she's not able to tell Helena why she's gone.

"Why the long face?" Pete asks, setting a duffle bag full of gear down next to Myka and bending to unzip it. She takes the preloaded clips that he offers her and tucks them into a pocket on her jumpsuit. It's handing open around her waist, waiting for Myka to pull on the kevlar body armor that Claudia's been tinkering with all month. It hasn't been field tested, so they're wearing two layers of it - but it should provide some protection against the sort of foes that they've been facing recently.

Trying not to think of Sally Stukowski and the fire that poured from every part of her body when she was threatened and how S.H.I.E.L.D. had rolled up and pulled her into a non-descript-looking SUV with government plates without so much as a second glance, Myka shrugs and tugs the kevlar over her head. "Just sick of this case, honestly."

"You like being the bookshop girl, don't you?" Pete teases. It's cold in Sioux Falls, colder than it'd been in Washington. Their breath shows in the air and Myka's shivering in her jumpsuit.

Myka sighs and can't quite meet his eyes. "I think it's more that I like being normal, you know."

"But why be normal, Mykes?" Pete laughs as Myka zips up her jumpsuit and pulls on an insulated skullcap before tugging on her cowl. "You can fly."

This is the difference between the two of them, Myka reasons. She slings her pack of gear over her shoulder and checks her com. Pete and Claudia flash her thumbs up and Myka kicks off the ground without ever answering Pete's question.

She supposes it's because it's just another secret she's got to keep.

The air above the small cluster of buildings that Claudia's pinpointed as the main ISP hub of A to Z Technologies is freezing. Myka's grateful for the double layer of Claudia's kevlar shirts, because she's shaking in this cold. The air smells of wood smoke and of snow up here, and Myka's worried that it will start to snow, which would force her down onto a rooftop and hurt her overall view of the op.

"Three," she says into the com, half-yelling over the wind. "Is it going to snow?"

"Negative, Two," Claudia says. "Weather report reads breezy, but no snow until tomorrow or Thursday."

Myka chuckles. "Good," she says, and takes a deep breath. "I have the building in my sighs, but its damn cold up here. I don't know how long I can stay up here before I end up with hypothermia."

"One's already in the building, planting the bugs," Claudia replies and Myka squints. She can't see Pete, but she can see a car pull up, headlights bright against the darkening skies. "Looks like we've got company."

"I'm coming down," Myka says, and lets herself fall.

She alights on a rooftop with a good line of sight so that she can spot Pete through the building's wide bay windows. It looks like a generic office building from here, five stories, a box farm if Myka's ever seen one. "Three, are you sure that this rifle will work?"

"Should be just fine," Claudia replies. "I even put your favorite scope on the top."

Myka smiles and sets the power level on the side to stun and prays that she's not up here too much longer, she's freezing already. She settles herself into a sniper's crouch, watching as two people get out of the car that's pulled up.

They venture into the building and Myka breathes in and out, steady. Ready if she has to be.

Maybe five minutes later, Myka is startled to feel a warm weight settle itself around her shoulders. She blinks, her mind sluggish. There is a large white knit scarf draped over her shoulders. The artificer stands a few feet up, her hands up in the air in surrender.

"You looked cold, darling," The Artificer drawls as Myka scrambles backwards. She's fumbling for her com, trying to send a warning, but the Artificer is stepping forward, gloved fingers tugging on the scarf and wrapping it more firmly around Myka's neck.

"Why are you here?" Myka asks. Her mind is short circuiting, being so close to this woman - this so called enemy of theirs is doing strange things to her mind. She smells of grease and the cold and a hint of sandalwood.

The Artificer inclines her goggled face, her breath fogging in the space between them. "Let's just say that I have a vested interest in seeing the nightmare box neutralized permanently, alright, darling?" She smiles then, and it's bright and full even behind her mask. "The man you're looking for is dangerous."

"Do you know his name?" Myka asks, gripping her gun tightly and wondering if she should be trying to bring the Artificer in. The Artificer is far, far too close for comfort and Myka can't stop staring at her lips. They're full and just a little bit chapped and Myka desperately wants to kiss them.

Perhaps this is why she's so hesitant with Helena, because she's already fallen for someone else?

Myka hates this. She hates this so much.

"Darling, you don't want anything to do with him," The Artificer assures Myka with a charming smile. She adjusts the scarf one last time. "You'll find what you're looking for in that building, I'm sure."

She leans in then, her lips brushing against Myka's frozen cheek. "Stay warm, darling," she says, stepping backwards and over the ledge of the building. Myka raises shaking fingers to her cheek and touches the skin there tentatively. It's as warm as the scarf, a blanket of warmth on this freezing cold afternoon.

Maybe the Artificer is like her, then, and can fly as well.

In all her life, Myka has never felt so torn.

The mission is a success and they have some names and faces now, which is far more than they've had to go on for quite some time. Claudia's been pouring over the data that they've recovered and Myka's been following her progress with interest.

The computer systems have been set up by a kid named Todd Monroe who's almost as good with computers as Claudia is, which is way more concerning than it probably should be. Claudia's in some sort of a hacking war with him using a secure server that's not connected to their mainframe and has spent a good portion of the past two days cursing loudly at the computer.

Helena hasn't come around, either, which makes Myka feel a little less guilty about how she's harboring rather terrible crushes on two separate people. She's texted Myka and said that she's had to go to New York to follow up on some resources for her book but that she should be back before weekend.

Myka doesn't know what she's going to do.

The papers are full of stories about how Tony Stark has gone missing somewhere in Afghanistan and what it means to the US defense industry. Myka pushes the paper away from herself and is almost glad that he's gone – one less so-called merchant of death making her job difficult.

"Shame about that guy," Pete says, flipping the paper around to look at it. He's just come in from the back, looking like he has something he wants to say to Myka, but it's gone as soon as he sees the paper. "But he was sort of an ass."

"Only sort of?" Myka asks with her eyebrow raised.

"Okay, a total ass, but he made awesome guns," Pete makes two guns with his fingers and rattles off a rat-tat-tat that pulls a smile to Myka's face. "Still use mine."

"Pretty sure everyone in law enforcement does," Myka replies, staring down at the paper.

"Oh, I meant to tell you, Claudia found another lead on her hacker kid. Seems he's based in Atlanta somewhere."

Myka steps forward, gathering up the newspaper and tucking it under her arm. "Is she sure this time?"

"Yeah, said it lit up like a bomb, she's calling Mrs. Frederic now." Pete shakes his head and jams his hands into his back pockets. "I've got a bad feeling about this one though."

"You and me both," Myka mutters, "you and me both."

They're just closing up the shop when Helena comes up. It's a little awkward, standing around with their go kits and gear slung over their shoulders and not looking particularly stealthy. Artie is coming with them, which means that the store must close. Mrs. Frederic had ordered them to Atlanta immediately, her eyes wide with fear. She'd said she'd meet them there.

"Oh, are you closed for the day?" She flips her wrist over and stares at her watch as Pete shoves their bags hurriedly into the back of his SUV.

Artie nods. "Sorry Ms. Wells, there's a bookselling convention we've got to go to - we have to close the shop for a few days," He lies smoothly. It's a little scary to see honestly, and Claudia ducks into the car. "We should be back to normal business hours next week."

Helena looks slightly put out and Myka puffs her cheeks out. "All you have to go?" she asks and Myka can hear the almost petulant sounding whine in her voice.

"'Fraid so," Pete says, slamming the trunk closed. "Such is the price of being in bookselling."

Her eyes narrowing, Helena nods. "I see," she says, and when Myka steps forward she shakes her head tersely. "No, I'll see you on Monday, then, Myka." There's so much hurt in her eyes when she raises them to meet Myka's, it makes Myka's heart break just a little bit. She bites her lip and tugs the zipper of her jacket up. She' got her jumpsuit underneath it, and it's fairly recognizable.

"Guess I'll see you then," Myka replies glumly.

Helena makes a noncommittal noise and stalks up the street and around the corner. Myka sighs and tugs the Artificer's scarf out of her bag and wraps it around her neck before she clambers into the back seat of the car. "Let's go." she says, and Pete nods once in the rear-view before putting the car into traffic.

Atlanta is an unmitigated disaster. Mrs. Frederic meets them at their rendezvous point, a fairly nondescript apartment building that Myka thinks might double as a CIA safe house. She looks drawn and weary, like she's got the whole weight of the world on her shoulders. Mrs. Frederic stands in the window, her body a dark silhouette against the bright Atlanta skyline. "Three more of the regents are dead," she says, looking from Artie to the rest of them with murder in her eyes. "Probably by the hand of A to Z Technologies." She's seething, packing back and forth, her body crackling with energy that sets the hair on the back of Myka's neck to stand up on edge.

"They were killed brutally, this one we're not going to turn over to S.H.I.E.L.D." Mrs. Frederic's voice is barely more than a hiss and she spins on her heel and heads back down to stand in front of Myka. "You have a shot, you shoot to kill, Agent Bering, is that understood?"

"Yes ma'am," Myka says. She waits for a half a second as Mrs. Frederic starts to move away once more. "What if the Artificer shows up? She's the one who set us down this path; I don't think she's the enemy here."

"Then you are naïve, Agent Bering. The Artificer has set us tracking down whoever is backing A to Z Technologies to suit her own personal interests. Should she interfere, remove her from the situation." There is no room for argument in Mrs. Frederic's tone and Myka swallows nervously, wondering if she'd be able to take the shot.

She's still wearing the Artificer's scarf, even though it isn't really cold enough in Atlanta to need it. Myka tugs her cowl over her face and ignores Pete's questioning look at the snow white scarf against her black jumpsuit.

They wait for Mrs. Frederic to give the go, and they disperse, heading towards the suburb where Claudia's located the hacker.

Claudia's hacker, Tyler Struhl has been using the alias Todd Monroe, which plays into the pings on that name that they've been getting over the past few days. He's working out of a house owned by a series of shell companies that Claudia's tracked back to A to Z Technologies. They're not exactly sure what he's doing in there, but it's obvious that he's attempted, at least once, to hack into Claudia's system. They all know that this is because of the nightmare box; the question is much more a why than a what right now.

The plan is to go in through both entrances at once. Claudia's made some sort of wide-area stunner out of the same material that she's built their non-lethal weapons out of. They usually just stick to Stark guns, maybe a few from Hammer Corp, but they're mostly crap and break easily. Pete hates them. Claudia likes to take them apart and critique their build. Myka is pretty sure that this stunner is actually just a repurposed flash grenade, but she can't be sure. So they're keeping their distance while Claudia sets it off inside, hoping to god that they'd don't actually succeed in killing the kid because that would totally send Mrs. Frederic off the deep end.

Myka stands on the roof of an apartment building across the street from the house and scowls at the nondescript building that houses their target. It's small and has faux-brick siding and a magnolia tree in its front yard. These are the suburbs, it's a quiet neighborhood. She can hear kids laughing in the apartment complex's pool behind her and she can't help but wonder if maybe this is the intended effect. Claudia thinks that A to Z Technologies' server banks are hosted in this house, which means that if they can get at them before Struhl has a chance to erase or damage them, that they have a good chance at figuring out who is behind these attempts to break into their computer system as well as figure out who is responsible for the murders of the regent board.

Pete is right though, there's a very bad feeling that hangs in the air all around this place. Myka shakes it off though, because that's not what her mutant ability has given her the ability to detect. Pete gets hunches sometimes, but he's not a mutant according to the tests, so they're just that. Myka tries to remember that Pete isn't a mutant most of the time, because his hunches are rarely wrong. Myka crouches, trying to shake the feeling of unease that fills her as she coils with forward momentum. She has to focus now. Myka plants her feet on the edge of the rooftop and sees Pete get into position below her. Claudia's going to take the back and Artie is going to cover the street behind them.

The flash of Claudia's stunner is blinding even from this distance and Myka squeezes her eyes shut as she pushes off the roof and tumbles down towards the front door, Pete kicks it in just as she's about to crash into it and Myka skids to a halt on the welcome mat, her gun held up and at the ready.

There is a man in the room, lying prone in front of the far doorway. He looks absolutely nothing like a computer hacker, and Myka approaches him with caution. He's too tall, too buff and most definitely cleaner than what she expects a hacker to be. This guy has to be muscle, which sets Myka even more on edge.

"Got him!" Claudia calls from the back room as Myka pulls a pair of zip-tie handcuffs from the back pocket of her jumpsuit and wraps them around their guy's wrists. "One, Two, you guys good?"

"Yeah, we're fine," Pete replies. He uses one booted foot to flip over their guy and stares down at his dark hair and tan skin. Myka doesn't recognize him from the dossier that Agent Coulson sent over and wonders if there's even more to this than meets the eye. In their line of work, Myka knows, there usually is, and it makes her nervous. Pete sighs and bends down to rifle through the guy's pockets. He passes over a sidearm to Myka who quickly pops out the clip and removes the final bullet from where it's loaded into the firing chamber. "Got another one in here though. His license says his name's Marcus Diamond – it's a South Dakota one."

Myka shivers, despite herself. She doesn't want to go back to that barren, cold state again if she can help it.

Still, the extra person present complicates their plan a good bit, especially since they can't be sure that the second guy (who is so painfully obviously muscle it hurts) is a mutant like Sally Stukowski. Myka chews her lip and watches as Pete hauls their hacker out of the back room and shoves him into the SUV that Artie's pulled up to the front. They haven't put a bag over his head, because the stunner should keep him knocked out until they get back to the safe house. Myka almost wants to avoid going back, because she's not sure if watching as Mrs. Frederic performs an interrogation is going to leave her with her lunch.

"Two, we should probably take this guy back to the boss," Pete says quietly. They're both looking down at Marcus Diamond's prone body, knowing that it'll be a huge risk to bring him back to the same place where Mrs. Frederic is based. A to Z Technologies obviously isn't shy about employing mutants, which makes the worry even stronger in Myka's mind as she finds herself making a quick plan.

"Leave three and the big guns," she says. "We'll stay put and sweep the computers here and keep an eye on this guy." They are going to have to come back here anyway, to check out the large bank of servers that are stored in the basement. It's pretty obvious that they took their hacker by surprise, so there's probably a great deal of information that they can discover about just who is running A to Z Technologies and what their exact interest is in the nightmare box.

"You sure you'll be okay?" Pete asks.

Myka nods. "I'll be fine, go."

Pete takes one more look over his shoulder before he heads out the door and gets into the waiting SUV, leaving Myka and Claudia alone with a whole bunch of computers and a man called Marcus Diamond.

Claudia's all the way into the mainframe of the A to Z Technologies network, her laptop practically humming from where it sits, propped open on her lap, when Marcus Diamond starts to come to. Myka pulls out her gun and trains it to point at his face, one booted foot firmly on his chest. She swallows out of nervousness, not knowing if he's suddenly going to display super strength or some sort of mutant ability. That's the absolute last thing that they need right now.

Marcus Diamond's eyes open wide for a second before they narrow and dart around the room before coming to rest on the barrel of Myka's gun. "Don't move," Myka says, her voice purposefully pitched low and authoritative. When they're on missions she tries to keep her voice like that, to disguise herself even further. She's not entirely sure that it works, but she likes to tell herself that it does. She knows that sometimes she doesn't do the best job of it, but this time she keeps her hand steady and her eyes hard as she speaks.

"Who are you?" he demands, struggling to sit up. Myka makes a show of flicking the safety off on her gun.

Their organization has no specific name. They're a warehouse, technically; a stockpile of objects that no one should possess. Sometimes, if they're too dangerous, they'll send them off to the slingshot to be destroyed, but most of the time, they simply keep them safe. There's a network of thirteen warehouses across the world now, but they still have no official name.

"My name is not important right now," Myka replies. "But I'm very interested to know some more about you, Mr. Diamond. You're the muscle, I'm assuming."

He sighs and flops back into the floor as best he can with his hands cuffed beneath him. He face appears almost long-suffering, and his bangs fall across his forehead in such a way that Myka can barely see his eyes. She frowns; it almost looks as though he has a tattoo there. But that can't be right. "And you're the group that handed Stukowski over to the government."

Myka inclines her head. "They're more of an international peacekeeping organization," she says judiciously. "She'll be taken care of, though, don't you worry."

Marcus Diamond starts to laugh then, and it's a hollow sound. There's no joy in it, no soul, and the hairs on the back of Myka's neck stand on edge. "And you think that threatening me will get me the answers you obviously want?"

"No," Myka says coldly. "We figured that your hacker was more likely to talk, he's in with our boss now, answering for his crimes against the regents." She stares down at him, her expression growing darker. "But I think that poor Sally might have just been the wrong face for the job. You, Mr. Diamond, you strike me as the sort of guy who'd take a drill to a person's leg. Sally didn't have that much control."

"You might be right there, but what makes you think Tyler'll talk?"

"Hackers," Myka says the word darkly, "Are notoriously easy to motivate. I'm sure that he'll sing his story and yours without little resistance." She glances towards the door to the back room where Claudia's still working. "I take it that your boss didn't think of that"

"Tyler's loyal, he'll never talk," Marcus Diamond replies. His foot flies up and kicks Myka hard in the wrist. She jerks backwards, her gun flying out of her hands and landing with a clatter in a corner.

Myka stumbles backwards, clutching her wrist and scowling. She could go for her backup, but Diamond's already on his feet, yanking hard at the zip tie cuffs. There's a grunt and a snap and Myka groans loudly. "Should have figured they'd have two mutants," she says, reaching up and activating her com. 'Three, call for back up. Our guy's awake and we were right, he's definitely enhanced."

"Ten four," Claudia replies and there's a beep over the com. "We calling Agent Coulson again?" she asks.

"Negative, three," Myka replies and ducks under a punch. He's so much bigger than her. She feels almost dwarfed by his lumbering height. His fist collides with her shoulder and Myka yelps as she flies backwards into a wall. This isn't going to be an easy fight."

She starts to throw punches and to move as quickly as she can around the room. Her hypothesis proves correct when Diamond seems to be struggling to track her. She lands a few good punches in, but nothing seems to knock him down for longer than a second or two. Myka grits her teeth and throws her full weight behind them, knowing that she's fading fast.

Somewhere during the fight, Myka blacks out. She drifts in and out of consciousness for what feels like hours, not quite able to move and shake the cobwebs from her mind. She feels gentle hands on her shoulders, pulling her upright and away from the collapsing wall that she's been slammed into. Her body feels like one big bruise when she wakes up, lying on the old, moth-eaten couch that had occupied the front room. When she is finally able to move once more, Claudia is staring down at her and Myka can hear sirens in the distance.

She has no idea who rescued her and chased away Diamond, but Myka thinks that she can hazard a pretty good guess. Claudia says nothing to confirm her suspicions, however, and Myka doesn't ask.

Myka dislocates her shoulder and has to have three stitches over her eye. She sits in the bookstore on their first day back with her arm in a sling and fumes about the fact that Marcus Diamond got away. They were right, they have another name now. Their hacker talked and Claudia's actively tracking down the man behind all the attempts to steal the nightmare box thus far: Walter Sykes.

Atlanta really had been an unmitigated disaster, even with that final piece to the puzzle uncovered.

"We need a bigger team," Pete had said to Mrs. Frederic on their way back to DC. "One or two more people so we're not leaving Claudia for back up. She's no help against mutants, despite, you know, being one..."

Mrs. Frederic had not argued. She'd merely nodded wearily and continued to flip through the pages of information that Claudia had pulled off of the A to Z Technologies servers. "Give me some time, Agent Lattimer."

Myka doesn't text Helena, not at first. But when Monday becomes Tuesday and Myka's shoulder is feeling a lot better she finds herself missing the figure in their window. She digs out her cellphone from her go bag and sends a simple inquiry as to what Helena's up to.

She can't be in love with a villain, and Helena's here and real and present. Myka know that she's the better option, even though her heart hates to choose.

Helena comes in on Wednesday, her laptop and books soon occupy the low table in front of her favorite chair by the window. Myka slides into the seat next to her after she's settled in and touches her arm gently.

"Good gracious, what happened to your face?" Helena asks, her eyes wide with shock when she sees the bruise and stitches on Myka's cheek and forehead.

Myka grins sheepishly. "Funny story, actually," she lies. "I was down in the basement, pulling a box of books off of one of the shelves and I took an out of date encyclopedia to the face." She raises a tentative hand to touch the stitches and winces. "It bled all over the place, I thought Pete was going to faint."

Helena gives Myka an odd, searching look. She stares at Myka for a long time before she shakes her head and pulls her notebook towards herself. Myka watches with interest and she opens it and turns to a page marked with a bright blue post-it flag. "Look at this," Helena says, her finger trailing down a line of perfectly written Hebrew script.

Myka translates it phonetically, lips moving around the words before turning to Helena and raising an eyebrow. She can decipher the script, yes, but she doesn't fully comprehend the language. She knows enough to get by in Jerusalem, but that's about it. Pete usually handles the Middle Eastern countries and the talking since he's practically fluent in Arabic and Persian.

"It says," Helena explains, "That a device once existed that could be used to create a golem without having to return to the roots of kabbalah mysticism and alchemy."

The nightmare box, Myka's stomach plummets. If they could find information on it, surely someone like Helena who was studying and researching such creatures and lore could find information on such a thing. It could just be a coincidence.

"That…. That's really cool, Helena," Myka says quietly. She wants to say that Helena should stay the hell away from this and not to touch it with a ten foot pole. Attracting any sort of attention to herself would be a bad more. A to Z Technologies had already proven that they could be beyond brutal when it came to getting information out of people.

"I wonder what something like that could do to the human body…" Helena says, shutting her notebook and shrugging. "It's not all that relevant to my novel, but I though the idea was fascinating."

"It is," Myka says breathily, casting around for something, anything, to distract Helena from the nightmare box.

And when Helena leans in then and kisses her, Myka lets her. She tangles her fingers in Helena's hare and doesn't even care when Pete comes in with a stack of files for her to look over. They have rules and regulations about this sort of thing, but it doesn't really matter. Not now when she can forget what it feels like to be ripped by indecision.

Pete has a theory about Walter Sykes the minute he sees the first grainy old photograph of him that Claudia's web crawlers are able to produce. "He wants to reanimate his legs," he announces happily, almost clapping his hands together with glee.

It's so simple and Occam's Razor usually dictates that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Still, Myka can't help but think that it's a little more complicated than that. "But why use this device?" she shakes her head. "There's almost nothing written about it, it doesn't seem logical when I'm sure there are other, more practical options. Wasn't there a group like ten years ago studying the regenerative properties of plants and trying to use that same technique on STEM cells?"

He shrugs. "Wasn't in the sports pages in Kosovo," he says quietly. "When we got the paper at all."

Myka puts a hand on his shoulder. "I know, Pete, it wasn't a dig."

"But it's a good theory, why go after the box specifically?"

Myka chews her lip and stares at the picture of the sandy-haired man in his wheelchair. Walter Sykes is not at all what she'd expected him to be. He's just a normal guy. A guy with money who's found a way to fix himself though less-than-conventional means. "There has to be more history here," she agrees. "Claudia, can you expand your search to include records that might have been overlooked the first time through?"

"Sure," Claudia says, poking at her computer. "What exactly did you want to know?"

It isn't easy to swallow her doubt, but it's an idea. "Check him for connections to S.H.I.E.L.D."

Call it a hunch, but they weren't wrong. Way back in the early stages of what would become S.H.I.E.L.D. there are references to a scientist named Sykes who was involved with some sort of attempt to recreate the super-soldier serum using an artifact recovered from amongst Johann Schmitt's personal affects. Walter Sykes is listed as that scientist's only living relative. The scientist in question was killed in a lab explosion that left Walter paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.

"They're gonna be so pissed," Claudia mutters to herself as she types furiously. "They're already trying to follow me back in. You'd think that they'd be too busy with Stark missing to do anything else."

"I really don't think he's that important," Myka says, setting a comforting hand on Claudia's shoulder.

The screen pings, a message window popping up. Myka leans in, reading the name on the file that Claudia's just found. Her eyes widen and her fingers grip Claudia's shoulder tightly. "Print that and then destroy any and all record of it," she says and takes the five pages when they spit out of the printer.

There is a photograph noted to be taken in 1895 and four pages of personnel data.

It's the name that makes Myka's blood run cold.

Wells, Helena G.

They've been played.

Myka's father read her the story of the man out of time before she could walk. The Time Machine is one of the stories of her childhood, one of the easy ones that she can come back to over and over again. Each time is something different, something new and exciting. She'd written her thesis on Wells' work.

A very different Wells, it seems, than the one she'd thought.

"There's no way," Pete says, looking at the picture. "It could just be a coincidence, Myka, seriously."

Pete had not heard Helena speak of the nightmare box and she doesn't have the heart to tell him just yet. She sighs and reaches for her jumpsuit.

"I'm going to end this," she says.

She never gets a chance, unfortunately. The proximity alarms go off just as she's finished pulling the jumpsuit on. Myka checks her guns and then tugs the Artificer's scarf around her neck. She should know better, really she should, but it's a comfort even now. Pete and Claudia are going downstairs to secure the vaults below. Pete smiles briefly before slamming the lock home from the inside.

"Artie'll be back with backup soon," Pete promises. "We really need a bigger team."

"Tell me about it," Myka replies. Her mind is racing, trying to figure out Helena's involvement in all this. What could she possibly want with the Warehouse? How could she possibly be that old? The mutant gene hadn't really manifested until World War Two, everyone knew that. It, along with the concept of super humans, were two unforeseen consequences of the war.

How the hell could Helena be that old?

The question is rattling around in the front of her mind when she ventures into the bookshop and finds herself face to face with Marcus Diamond and a man who can only be Walter Sykes.

"And who are you supposed to be?" He asks, leveling a gun at her chest that Myka has no hope of dodging.

She swallows and tenses, ready to spring into the air if she has to. Her face is schooled perfectly neutral and she levels her gaze coolly on the man who has caused them so much trouble and who is responsible for the death of their regents. "Secret Service, Mr. Sykes," she says curtly. "You're a hard man to find."

A mad smile blossoms across Sykes' face. "That's how I like it, Agent. It makes a great number of things a lot easier." He speaks with an arrogant tone that totally matches his smug-looking face and frat-boy haircut. Myka bites back a retort and keeps her hands limp at her sides. She doesn't want to get shot in process of doing this. "I'm here for the nightmare box," Sykes explains. "And as you've already had a run in with Marcus here, I was thinking you might want to cooperate and avoid a lot of unnecessary bloodshed."

"It isn't here," Myka lies. "We sent it to the Slingshot."

"You wouldn't hand something so powerful over to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Sykes growls, calling Myka's bluff easily. "Your superiors would never allow it."

Myka wants to dare him to raise the stakes, but she knows that she can't take his monster of a body guard in a fight without back-up and she doesn't really like the idea of getting shot either. She goes for a tried and true tactic of Pete, and deflects with humor. She's got to fight, desperately, until their back up can come. Pete and Claudia will have started the defense systems by now, and those defense systems, if activated, would leave none of them alive. "We gave them Stukowski," Myka points out.

"Oh Sally..." Sykes relaxes his hand on the gun and Myka feels momentarily bad for punching a guy in a wheelchair, but she does it anyway. Her fist connects to Sykes' jaw and he flies backwards as Myka spins, her foot connecting with his forearm in a satisfying crack of a probable broken bone. The gun flies out of his hand and clatters to the ground and his wheelchair slams into one of the display racks for best sellers.

Myka ducks under a punch from Marcus Diamond as Sykes falls to the ground in a heap of useless limbs. Diamond gets her by the back of her jumpsuit and Myka can't twist away. She drops low, hoping to throw off his center of gravity, but he remains solid and throws her to the floor. Myka struggles to sit up and he seems to collapse down around her, his fingers lacing around her neck.

Cradling his injured arm, Walter Sykes has righted himself and is straightening his useless legs out in front of him. "You are woefully outmatched, Agent." He inclines his head to one side and Marcus shoves his hand so hard into her neck that she feels the breath completely leave her chest. "Why don't you tell us where the nightmare box is?"

Myka opens her mouth to reply, and hears the bell over the door tinkle as it's opened. She can hear the familiar sounding scream and then Marcus Diamond squeezes her neck to the point where the whole world goes black.

Helena is there when she wakes up, eyeing her from where they're lying bound, face down on the hardwood bookshop floor in front of Sykes' wheelchair. He's gotten back into it, but Myka is vindicated when she sees that his hand is still cradled against his chest. He's flipping through what Myka's aching mind concludes has to be Helena's moleskine journal with a deeply pensive look on his face.

"Oh good," Sykes says, bending down and leveling his gun at Helena's head. "You're awake." He slowly pulls the hammer back on the gun. "Now you're going to tell me the door code to get into your downstairs vault or she dies."

Myka's head aches and she's almost positive she's concussed. The world is spinning and Helena's looking at her with those wide brown eyes that drive all the hatred and worry from earlier away forever. "Don't tell him anything, Myka," Helena says quietly.

"How'd you..." Myka asks, but then she realizes that she doesn't feel the familiar press of her cowl over her forehead. Shit, now she's done for.

"Darling," Helena says, and its pitched low and Myka's eyes widen. "I wouldn't worry about me."

Sykes pulls the trigger.

Myka watches with wide and horrified eyes as the bullet passes through Helena's head with no splatter as well. Just the smallest amount of blood-red dirt trickles out of wound and Myka lets out a small scream as the wound starts to close itself once more.

Helena shakes her head slightly and the blood red dirt streaks down the pale skin of her cheek like a tear of blood.

"What the hell are you?" Sykes demands, pulling the hammer back on his gun once more. Myka watches as the chamber loads and tries to contain her own shock at what Helena's managed to survive. It shouldn't be possible.

"You hadn't figured it out until now, darling," Helena says to Myka, her eyes growing soft once more. She tugs on the ropes that bind her and they snap like they were nothing more than thread. "I had intended for you to figure it out."

"You're the one who stopped us in London!" Sykes roars and fires his gun once more into Helena. She barely acknowledges the bullet passing through her.

"The Artificer," Myka breathes, awestruck. She'd never even considered that.

"Yes darling," Helena says quietly, brushing the clay dust away from where it has appeared from where Sykes has shot her again. She leans forward and clocks him on the jaw, yanking his gun from his hands before shoving him hard so he rolls backwards into the wall. "I'd thought I'd made it obvious."

Myka pulls herself into a sitting position and surveys the trashed bookshop. Artie is going to have a cow once he gets over the idea that Helena, their quiet patron, is the Artificer who started this whole mess. They're going be cleaning for weeks. "Where'd Diamond go?"

"Oh? Sykes' man?" Helena tosses her hair over her shoulder and bends to press a kiss to Myka's cheek. She undoes the ropes around Myka's wrists and gently rubs them, helping the feeling come back into them. Her eyes are dark and intense as she meets Myka's gaze evenly. "He was a golem, darling. I removed his shem." In the distance, the local church's clock tower tolls six and Myka finds herself smiling wryly. It's Friday, officially the Sabbath. Just in keeping with the original myth.

"Then what are you?" Myka demands.

Helena's eyes become downcast and her mouth twists downwards into a scowl. "I am what happens when that box is used for the wrong reasons."

"A golem?" Myka asks.

"Not specifically," Helena shakes her head sadly. "But this is not the time for that. We must tell your friends that it is safe."

She pushes herself upright and Myka feels a little of the dirt that had come from Helena's wound sprinkle down onto her cheek. She brings two reverent fingers to her touch it, brushing in the clay that does not feel at all like blood. "You can't die…"

Helena holds out her hand and Myka takes it, pulling herself to her feet and staring down at Helena's hand in her own. It is warm, and soft to the touch. She starts to speak, a million questions bubbling up within her as Helena smiles pleasantly at her. "No, darling, I cannot. It's rather troublesome, I must say." She glances towards the door to the back of the shop and the stairs that Myka knows will be blocked by an almost impenetrable door. "As with all things, it's a little more complicated than simple death, however."

They move into the back as one and Helena turns around as Myka punches in the door code and then the second level of codes that sound the all clear. They have a protocol in place that if someone is captured or otherwise apprehended that they are to only ever give away the first code. It works well for them, as the door only appears to have one lock. The second code triggers a series of warning lights, or so the procedures state, that flash green instead of read to signal the all-clear.

"How do you mean?" she demands, yanking the door open and pulling Helena inside of it. Myka takes the stairs three at a time and lands in a couch, staring down the barrel of Pete's service weapon. He grins at her, and flips it sideways.

"Safety's on," he jokes.

"I figured," Myka replies wryly. She glances to where Helena's lingering at the top of the stairs and pulls Pete aside. "Look," she says. "Helena saved my life up there. Sykes is out cold with a broken wrist to boot and Diamond is disabled."

"Disabled?" Pete's eyebrows shoot up.

Myka nods. "He's a golem, or at least something similar enough to one to follow the same basic rules of how one operates." At Pete's continued baffled look, Myka turns and calls for Helena, telling her to come down. "Do not shoot her," Myka says in a low undertone, but Pete doesn't put his gun away.

"Hello Pete," Helena says, standing on the last step. Her skin looks sallow in the flashing green lights of the vault.

"Helena," Pete replies. "Why are you covered in dirt?"

Taking a long moment to look between Pete and Myka with a rather pensive expression on her face, Helena steps into the light and brushes the dirt from her shirt and pants. "I got shot," she says shortly.

Pete's eyes widen and Myka lets out a small breath that feels like it's somewhere between a sigh and a groan. "And you get dirty when you get shot?" Pete asks, because he's a good guy at heart and he's not exactly the sort of guy who's going to question a pronouncement like that. Myka can fly, after all.

"I haven't been shot since the Blitz so it's a little hazy, but yes, that's usually what happens." Helena glances down at the dirt that streaks her clothing and sighs. "If it's not too much trouble, Myka, I'd like to see the nightmare box."

Looking between Myka and Helena, Pete pulls his gun up once more, his eyes hardening and his stance widening just enough to compensate for the kick back of his gun. Myka sees it and steps forward, her fingers brushing up against Pete's back. "Don't," she whispers to him. "She's on our side."

"Two hours ago you were ready to kill her, Mykes, what changed?" Pete demands, not lowering his gun. Myka can see that he's still ready to strike, but he's definitely curious, and she doesn't really know how to tell him that she really doesn't know how to explain what's changed.

"Walter Sykes was after the nightmare box because he thought he could use it to reanimate his paralyzed legs," Helena's stuck her hands in her pockets and is standing perfectly still. "He doesn't know the price of using such a thing."

"And I suppose you do?" Pete replies, his held tilting a little to the side in question.

"Pete," Myka says insistently. "It's a device that's used to create golems, which are creatures made out of clay. What happens when Helena gets shot?"

"I don't know Myka, she bleeds dirt?"

"Exactly," Myka continues hurriedly, begging him to understand. "Sykes is upstairs, knocked out and with a broken wrist to boot. Helena did that. He shot her in the head and chest before she could do it, but she's still standing there."

"Are you a mutant?" Pete asks, not quite lowering his gun, but his expression softens all the same. "Or just some sort of failed experiment."

"I was killed in an explosion in 1895, the S.H.I.E.L.D. file should say that much. I was working on trying to harness the transformative power of the nightmare box as an energy source." Helena's eyes grow dark and she looks down at her dirt covered hands. Shaking her head as if to clear it, she straightens and her voice becomes stronger. "The nightmare box preserved my life, or so I am to assume. It comes with a cost, as do all these things, though. And I need to see the box in order to make sure that it has not suffered from being kept in a place such as this."

Pete lowers his gun and glances to Myka, who's feeling as confused as she feels. "Do we trust her?" he asks.

"I think so," Myka says. She peers down the hallway towards the vault. "Claudia still down there?"

"Yeah, we should go let her know it's safe." Pete doesn't put his gun away, but he lowers it. "Come on, you too. You can look at your box and then we can all get out of here."

Helena trails behind them, and Myka lets her into the vault with some trepidation. She keeps her hands in her pockets, though, following half a step behind Myka as they move deeper into the vaults.

The basement of the bookstore is a lot bigger on the inside than it seems on the outside. There's three levels in the vault and so much storage that sometimes just looking at it all hurts Myka's head a little bit. They're going to the back wall though, where the emergency switches are kept and Claudia's secondary workshop (for when she's dealing with things that aren't fit for the public eye) is located.

The nightmare box is sitting on the workbench next to Claudia's laptop, and she's clicking away at it. "Artie's eta is five minutes," she says, not looking up.

"Good, there's two baddies upstairs for them to take care of," Pete grins. "And I brought one down here."

"I can hear you," Helena points out.

Pete just grins wider and wiggles his eyebrows at Myka barely resists rolling her eyes. She steps around Pete and pulls a purple rubber glove from the box on the corner of Claudia's desk and picks up the nightmare box. It doesn't really seem that powerful now, just a little box that holds the secrets of just who Helena is and what she's done.

"Here," she says, and turns, depositing the box on Helena's outstretched palms.

In her hand sit changes, going from a mud-colored cube of faded lead to something else entirely. It shifts, glowing a deep blue, and seems to pulsate and on itself, drawing power from somewhere unseen.

Helena's body responds to it, the same deep blue glow casting light onto her face and bathing her pale skin in its luminescence. She opens her mouth, but no sounds seem to come out and slowly but surely the two bullets that were lodged within her skin begin to work their way out. Dirt and clay crumble onto the floor before them as first the bullet in Helena's gut, and then the one in her head fall out and onto the floor with the quiet sound of metal hitting concrete.

"She's healing herself on an artifact," Pete says, his eyes wide.

"I left it in your care when I first heard tell of Sykes' plan to obtain it. A device such as this has always been safest in the hands of those who do not want to harness its power for any means." Helena sets the box down with a grateful smile. "And I may live a hundred mores, provided this device is not destroyed."

"Could you live a normal life, if it was destroyed?" Claudia asks. She's done a very good job of pretending to ignore them as she follows Artie's progress back to the bookshop on the GPS tracker that they're all pretending she doesn't have installed on his car.

Helena holds the box up to eye level, peering at it thoughtfully. "I have no idea," she says truthfully. "There is no telling if I could continue to live, should this device be destroyed, or even used on something else."

Claudia appears pensive, and opens up a new window on her computer with a nod of her head. Lines of code begin appearing and Myka finds that even she cannot read quickly enough to follow it. "Glad we didn't really send it to the Slingshot, eh, Myka?" Claudia says, her fingers flying over the keyboard now.

"Yeah," Myka agrees.

"I'm doing the odds and figuring out if we can test it. No one should be stuck under the power of an artifact." Claudia shakes her head. "No one."

Artie is, naturally, less than thrilled by this new development. Mrs. Frederic, however, is not nearly so quick to judge. She takes Helena away into a side alcove and speaks to her in an undertone for what feels like close to an hour.

Myka watches, leaning against Artie's desk and worrying at the hem of her sweater. She's covered in dirt and the cut from her forehead is bleeding into her eye again, but she finally feels as though she's happy.

"Walter Sykes," Artie says after a minute of shuffling around his papers and stacking them in an order that seemingly only makes sense to him. "Shot her in the head and yet she still stands. Unbelievable."

"Isn't everything in this place?" Myka asks.

"I suppose so," Artie says gruffly. He looks across the room to where Mrs. Frederic and Helena are speaking. "I don't know if letting her near the nightmare box is a good idea, though." He shakes his head. "There's always a price with artifacts."

Myka nods slowly and watches as Pete and one of the Regent's security guys that Mrs. Frederic has brought with her move the lifeless body of Marcus Diamond onto a cart that will roll down the steps to the vault. He's a golem, they reason, so they're going to bronze him so that he isn't able to hurt anyone any more.

"Do you think Claudia can figure out the odds of getting her off of that?" Myka asks quietly as Artie scowls and scoots his chair over to the computer screen where he has been researching golems to make sure that there's absolutely no chance that they're self-aware while in stasis without their animating word written on their forehead.

"I have no idea," Artie grouses. He pokes the screen a few more times, manipulating the interface and flipping it around with some concentration. "At least we know that he's not going to feel it when we do it."

"And Sykes?" Myka almost doesn't want to know.

"Probably the same, but Mrs. Frederic wants to put him before the Regents first," Artie shakes his head. "Such a fate is less than he deserves for what he did."

"I know," Myka says, low and reverent. They cannot question the powers of their leaders, because they're the only things that seem to make sense in this crazy world of theirs. They gave Tyler Struhl over to S.H.I.E.L.D. as his skills might actually be useful to them, but also as penance for hacking into their files one too many times.

They lapse into silence and Myka stares up at the ceiling. Her entire world is contained within this place, and she's happy to be alive. TO stand here next to Artie and all his grumpiness and to know, to simply know, that this victory is the only one that matters.

And it is good.

It takes Claudia and two borrowed S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists (that Myka thinks are barely out of school, very English, and speak entirely too fast for their own good) three weeks to figure out if Helena's body is actually dependent on the nightmare box to work. And in those two weeks, the world has gone to hell.

Tony Stark's been found in the desert of Afghanistan and there's some lunatic who may or may not be a body guard of his flying around in a bright red metal suit exacting vengeance on those who have apparently kidnapped him. It's strange, to see the gaunt shell of a man that had once made Myka shake her head in disgust. Now he just looks lost.

"Tell me," Helena says, leaning over and plucking the newspaper from Myka's hands. "Why does your organization follow what Mr. Stark does so closely? She flattens the paper out, and, leaning on her elbow, she rests her chin on her palm, fixing Myka with a thoughtful look. "I suppose that from a technological perspective you have to keep an eye on him to make sure that he's not using any artifacts, am I correct?"

Myka shrugs. "He's a celebrity who's always all over the papers, I suppose." She taps his picture with her finger. "We stole Claudia from his R and D department. Mrs. Frederic didn't think it was a good idea for someone with her abilities to be available to a civilian." Myka chuckles, "That and we're mostly former law enforcement here; we're used to his guns."

"Guns have no place in a civilized society," Helena turns her nose up at the idea and Myka finally finds a way to ask the question that's been bugging her for a long time now. Helena is so many people all at once that sometimes it's easy for Myka to forget her first identity, the one that Myka's grown up loving.

"When you were writing, before, who was the man with the mustache?" There's no historical record of there being a second child in the Wells' family, at least not as far as Myka can find out on any government website. Myka has been wondering this ever since Helena had confirmed that yes; she was the one who had penned so many of Myka's childhood favorites.

"My brother Charles..." Helena trails off, shaking her head. "People always forget the daughters, the wives and the mothers, you know? There are reports if you read far enough back that tell of Charles' 'troubled' sister and niece." Myka can see the storm of emotions that rage across Helena's face as she speaks the words. There's hurt, grief, so much grief. "I died tragically, according to the record, consumed by my grief over my daughter's death."

"You had a child?" Myka asks, eyes wide and her heart aching.

"Not by birth," Helena shakes her head. "But she was mine, my Christina. She's been gone for so long that sometimes I forget the pain, and I hate myself all the more for it." She looks at Myka then, and reaches out to close her hand around Myka's. Their fingers intertwine over Stark's gaunt and haggard face. "I was rather self-destructive during the Great War, but nothing seemed to stick. That damned box wouldn't let me die so that I could be with her again."

Myka knows that she has to do something to help Helena, even if all she can do is help her to die. She doesn't want that. She's grown used to Helena's presence in the front of the shop, sharing little tidbits of information that she's discovered. She's found herself falling in love with that image of the woman, not the Artificer or the woman who's lived three lifetimes. It's always just Helena and her charming smile and the fact that she always seems sort of sad.

"Would you take the chance if it was offered to you?" Myka asks.

Helena raises her eyes to meet Myka's evenly. "No," she says and her voice is clear and strong as the sunlight outside. "I've found another reason to live for, I think." She leans forward and Myka moves forward as well. Their lips brush in a gentle, innocent kiss. The promise of a better tomorrow.

They live in a world that is full of things that cannot be explained, but this is the one thing in Myka's life that makes sense. Helena makes sense in a way that Myka cannot quite put into words. The days string together endless with her.

It's easy to let Helena draw her into the city at night. They walk along the mall, hand in hand, staring up at the monuments to men long-since dead. Questions race in Myka's head, even then, and she finds herself staring at Helena and wondering just what she did with herself for the one hundred years between then and now.

And it's obvious that Helena knows what she's thinking about. They don't need words; they've never really needed words to have whole conversations with her eyes. Myka can't imagine what it's like to watch everyone you love die, and Helena can barely hide the hurt behind a cocky smile and a gentle kiss pressed against Myka's cheek.

"What did you do," Myka dares ask over dinner in a small corner bistro far away from the bookshop and the part of the city that Myka knows. They're sharing a thick beef stew and bread out on the sidewalk, sitting next together for warmth against the chilly night air.

Helena breaks the bread between her fingers and looks thoughtful for a moment. "I wrote," she says. "I worked for the RAF, got to know Peggy Carter and Howard Stark pretty well, too."

"Did you ever meet Captain America?" Myka asks because she can't help herself. The entire nation had grown up reading of his exploits in the comics. The fact that the comic book character had been based on a real person had made Myka feel better about her own abilities.

A sad smile crosses Helena's face and she shakes her head. "It was after his death, unfortunately, I didn't really get involved until after." She gives a little shrug and dips her bread into the steaming bowl of stew. "I did help them out with some of the HYDRA holdouts, but I do hope that they kept that out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. file."

Smirking, Myka picks up the spoon that they've been sharing between the two of them and breaks up a larger chunk of stew meat into smaller, more manageable pieces. "It does say approach with caution in your file," she jokes. "Also that you're an asset and not an enemy of the side of good." She shrugs and spoons some of the stew onto her piece of bread, leaning forward to catch any that might end up all over her shirt. "Shame we didn't see that before Artie labeled you public enemy number one."

"Yes," Helena trails off, eyes unfocused and staring out into the middle-distance. "I did not mean for that man to be hurt when I created that explosion," she doesn't look at Myka when she says this, slowing shredding the bread in her hand into crumbs. "I knew that I needed a suitable diversion to keep you from figuring out that I was merely giving you the box for lack of a better option. Sykes' people were closing in and I lacked the resources to appropriately track them down and deal with them, so I found people who could." She sighs, her shoulders slumping. "I feel terrible that that poor man was caught in the explosion."

Myka reaches out and touches Helena's shoulder, feeling her shaking slightly beneath her thin jacket. "He's fine, Helena. He made a full recovery."

Helena shakes her head. "It doesn't help the guilt. So many are already dead at my hands, good and bad alike. I have to live forever with this guilt."

The spoon clatters down into the bowl and Myka flings her arms around Helena's shoulders. "Don't," is all she says when Helena tenses underneath her. They stay like that, locked together for so long that Myka loses track of time and their soup has definitely gone cold. She slips a ten and a twenty under the soup bowl and pulls Helena to her feet.

Myka unwraps her scarf from around her neck and loops it around Helena's, gently tucking the fabric in and on itself so that it will stay put. When Helena opens her mouth to ask Myka what she's doing, Myka presses her finger to Helena's lips. "Do you want to see something amazing?"

Helena nods and Myka wraps her arm around Helena's waist and glances around. There's a madman in a metal suit running around, but she still has a cover to maintain. There's no one on the street and she kicks herself into the air, driving herself back the way they've come, towards the mall.

Letting out a whoop of joy, Myka holds tight to Helena and loops once, banking hard right and coming to hover far above the Washington Monument's reflecting pool. There's no wind today, but the air is cold up here and Myka knows that they cannot linger.

"You protected this," Myka explains, gesturing out over the mall beneath them. "Sometimes people get hurt in the process, it's a hard fact of doing what we do."

Helena's smile is wide and she bows her head slightly against the cold. "I know," she replies. "I struggle with it every day, but I know that what I'm doing is for the good of us all."

They're in restricted airspace, and it's only a matter of time before planes are scrambled to their location, so Myka pulls Helena slowly in closer and kisses her just once in the air. It's short and sweet, a simple brush of lips but Myka's caught the spark in Helena's eyes and feels her own hips press forward into Helena's needy wriggle forward as she bends for a second kiss. Pulling away, her lips swollen and her eyes slightly unfocused, Myka asks,

"Want to go..."

"Yes," Helena replies, voice full of emphasis that Myka can't help to avoid.

Myka has never flown so fast in her life.

Myka's at her apartment so infrequently these days that she sometimes forgets that this, rather than her bunk on the floor above the bookshop is her home. She unlocks the door tentatively and realizes it's been over a week since she bothered to sleep here. There've been briefings and away missions and Sykes trial and interrogation to deal with. They're still on the fence about bronzing him, but Myka's sure that that will be the verdict eventually.

Her apartment is simple, a small living room full of bookshelves and a comfortable couch. Beyond it is a bedroom with an unmade bed and even more books. The kitchenette is small and under stocked. Myka chronically eats out, her schedule is too uncertain to do much else and the foods she likes would spoil too quickly to keep fresh in the fridge.

"I don't come back here much," Myka confesses as Helena steps curiously into the living room. Myka flicks the light switch and the two floor laps fill the dark room with a golden glow.

It's easy to watch Helena as she steps into the room and trails her fingers along Myka's bookshelves. There's no television in here, Myka's got a small one in her bedroom but she hardly ever uses it. She watches the news when she's at home, and sometimes movies. Mostly, though, this is a sanctuary for her books.

"You're rather well read," Helena comments. A sly smile dances across her lips as she pulls the creased and dog-eared copy of The Time Machinethat Myka's had since she was eleven from the bookshelf. The garish, early 90's cover is faded and speckled white in places where the printing has worn off, but the picture still remains: The traveler standing alone amongst the forest, his abandoned time machine behind him.

Myka shrugs off her coat and grins sheepishly. "I think I've always had a love for you-" she stops shortly and looks up to meet Helena's intense brown eyes. Her cheeks are burning and she's cursing herself for admitting it. She's not sure that they're truly ready for all that. "For your words," she finishes, feeling foolish as she says it.

Helena carefully slides the book back into its place on the shelf and doesn't say anything for a long time. "Would it be so bad," she asks finally. She turns to look at Myka over her shoulder, her bangs falling across her face and her expression guarded. "To love all of me?"

Shaking her head, Myka flushes even deeper and moves to sit on the couch. She slumps down with her hands open in her lap. "It wouldn't be," she says and exhales quietly. She raises her gaze to meet Helena's eyes. "I have never wanted something like this before. There've been others, yes, but it's never been like this."

Helena unbuttons her jacket and sets it on the couch arm. She stands there in her shirt and vest for a moment before she seems to come to a decision. Myka lets out a startled yelp as Helena turns and deposits herself on her lap, her eyes as intense as they've ever been. "Stop fighting this, darling." She leans forward, her lips a breath away from Myka's own. "One would think you're scared to love me."

And Myka isn't scared. She's never allowed herself to fully love anyone before, because she's never been able to be truly honest with them before. "I'm not," she says. Her fingers are shaking as she reaches up and cups Helena's cheeks, pulling her in and kissing her with everything that she cannot say.

The kiss lingers, Myka's mouth opening in breathless anticipation with every press of Helena's lips against her own. The gasp that escapes Myka is followed by an even deeper kiss, Helena's fingers tangling in Myka's hair as their press themselves together on Myka's well-loved couch. She is a warm and comforting weight in Myka's lap, but Myka's not entirely sure where she should be putting her hands. She lets herself be kissed and rests her hands loosely on Helena's hips, her fingers just barely brushing under the hem of Helena's shirt to touch the warm skin hidden beneath.

She wants to touch more, to feel Helena pressed up against her, to know Helena's want and to own it as her own. Myka pulls back from the kiss, her teeth lingering on Helena's lower lip. She nibbles there, lingering, enjoying how Helena gasps for breath and presses her hips forward with the added pressure. Her eyes are wide and dark, but they're full of the same feeling that wells up within Myka as she presses their foreheads together. Their breath comes in short little puffs of air, just enough to drive home how desperately Myka wants this.

"Want to…" she starts, bending and pressing her lips to Helena's neck. The muscles there are tight as Helena throws her head back and clings to Myka's back, her nails biting through the thin cotton of Myka's shirt. Myka pulls away, not want to leave a mark, "I want this," she says firmly. She leans back and meets Helena's gaze. "I want this because I've fallen in love with you twice over now."

Helena's smile is slow and sweet, and she presses a gentle kiss to Myka's nose. "Oh Myka," she says, her fingers coming up to cup Myka's cheeks. She doesn't say anything more, pressing an open mouthed kiss to Myka's lips and pressing their bodies even closer.

Throwing all caution and hesitation to the wind, Myka lets her fingers slip up under Helena's shirt. The skin there is warm, and Helena rocks closer still. Her tongue dances against Myka's and she lets Myka suck and hold her in place, fingers splayed out across her hips and back.

"Bed?" Myka asks when they pull apart and Helena nods just once before pushing backwards and rising to unsteady feet. She bends and unzips her boots, pulling her feet from them as soon as she's able and standing in stocking feet as Myka toes off her own shoes and reaches forward to undo the buttons on Helena's vest.

They leave a trail of clothing in their wake. Helena's shirt and vest are gone before they reach the hallway leading back to the bedroom, and Myka's shirt soon joins it. Myka lets Helena press her up against the wall and kiss her, their hips knocking together in desperation as Myka finds she wants to feel more. She groans and Helena smirks at her, reaching down and undoing Myka's belt with skilled fingers that Myka stares at dumbly for a few long seconds before Helena reaches down and pops the button on her jeans.

"Yes…" Myka hisses quietly, and they fall backwards into her bedroom. It's dark and quiet, the bed is unmade and barely used, but the whole place seems safe and desperate. Myka tugs at Helena's jeans, pulling at the zipper and at her belt loops, moving her between Myka and the bed. Helena gets what she's doing, it seems, for she falls back and Myka pulls her pants from her legs with ease and kicks off her own in the process.

Helena's underwear is simple and black, a shadow across her pale skin. Looking at her in this dim light, she seems to almost glow and Myka's breath catches in her throat. She sinks down onto the bed and Helena rolls onto her stomach, pressing her lips to the place where Myka's neck meets her shoulder. "You're so beautiful," Myka says.

"I do not hold a candle to you, darling," Helena replies with a smile. She pushes Myka's shoulder up and Myka is surprised by how easily she's moved for a moment, before she remembers the dirt and the gunshot and Helena lifting a concrete wall to save that same boy she still frets over so. Her bra is being undone, Myka's brain realizes a few seconds later. Her bra is being undone and Helena's lips are pressed up against her neck and her fingers are touching and damn, it's good.

Helena's fingers are replaced with her lips and soon it's all that Myka can do to keep herself centered and here, not floating three feet above the bed. It's happened before, and Helena's moving in such a way that her self-control is all but shot. She's going to lose it soon, she knows.

"I fell in love with you when I first saw you in the sky, Myka," Helena whispers, her fingers dipping to rest on Myka's hip. Her lips are pressed into the valley between Myka's breasts, leaving a hot trail of kisses in her wake as she moves slowly, oh so slowly down. She punctuates each word with a kiss and smiles as Myka's breathing becomes more and more ragged. "You are magnificent when you fly."

"Helena…" Myka starts, her fingers resting lightly on Helena's head. She wants more; she wants so much more, but this, this is what she's needed to hear. This is what she needs to let go.

Helena's mouth dips lower still, fingers pulling Myka's underwear down and tossing it aside. Helena kisses her inner thigh just once, before reverent fingers brush up into the slick wetness of Myka's desire.

It is hard and fast and everything that Myka hasn't known she's needed. She clings to Helena's back, her mouth buried in the crook of Helena's neck. She's leaving a mark now, she knows that she is, but she doesn't care. She bites and sucks and tries to drown out the sounds of her coming undone against the steady pressure of Helena's palm against her and the fingers inside of her. She comes in a wash of sensation that bursts forth from deep within her, leaving her murmuring nonsense and definitely hovering above the bed.

"I never realized you lost all ability to stay grounded when aroused," Helena comments afterwards, languidly licking her fingers and halfheartedly batting away Myka's curious fingers against her stomach and breasts. "It must have made from some interesting adolescent fumbling."

Myka smiles slow and easy, her finger trailing a perfect circle around one of Helena's pert nipples. "Well, I did go to a school for people like me my senior year," she jokes. "It was a little weird for everyone." What she doesn't say is that she likes it, because it means that she is truly happy, for that is when she is at her most free. The skies are her home, and Helena's given her a way to feel them with the same pleasure as a lover.

Helena groans as Myka increases the pressure of her fingers and bends her head to nip at her aroused nipple. The dance starts once more, and Myka rolls them over so that their hips are pressing against each other. She rocks forward her hands on either side of Helena's head and a foolish smile on her face. "You've given me so much Helena," she whispers, bending to kiss her lover on the cheek. She's pulled in for a full open mouthed kiss and her hips rock in time with Helena's beneath her.

It goes on for hours, all throughout the night. And when they're spent they sleep together and Myka feels content for the first time in a long time.

S.H.I.E.L.D. repossesses their scientists and Myka's almost sad to see them go. They've helped Claudia to make a contraption that takes up half the workroom, but supposedly work quite well. They've used the nightmare box on a dead opossum that they'd found on the side of the road and then successfully removed the nightmare box's connection to it. This had led to a great deal of speculation on Pete's part, but Helena had joined in the fray and Myka had watched as the four of them parsed out a decent game plan and settled that they had to at least try it with Helena. The results of their tests were so promising.

"After all," Helena put it when Myka had voiced her objections. "I can't die."

When Claudia pushes the button on her contraption, Myka cannot look. She buries her head in Pete's shoulder as the same deep blue light fills the room and Helena lets out a quiet sort of surprised noise before the light floods through Myka's closed eyelids.

The whole procedure takes ten minutes. Helena is sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, the nightmare box on a table before her. It starts to hover in the air as Claudia's device does its work. Light fills the room one last time and then darkness falls.

And Helena is sitting there, and nothing has changed.

"Did it work?" Pete asks, leaning forward to stare at Claudia's screen. Myka blinks her eyes a few times to get their reoriented to the damp light of the vault and reads the line of text as well.

"Only one way to find out," Claudia says. She picks up a multi-tool from the desk and tosses it over to Helena, who catches it easily. "Try and cut yourself, H.G.," she says, using the moniker that both she and Pete have decided that they like more than Helena's actual name.

Helena takes a second to locate the knife on the tool and, pulling out a saw blade and a can opener before successfully finding the blade.

"If my calculations are correct, this shouldn't change her body composition much at all. It should alter it so that she follows a normal human lifespan once more." Claudia prods the screen and it shifts to a whole separate window despite the fact that her laptop was not a touch screen. "We should be able to successfully neutralize the nightmare box after this," she explains, pulling up a schematic of the box. "Since it's not sustaining H.G. in her current state."

The knife on the multi tool slices easily into Helena's palm as they all watch as the dirt wells up there like blood would, before it retracts into itself.

"It's never been wet before," Helena comments, setting the closed multi tool on the table in front of her and trailing two fingers through the dirt on her palm. It looks a little like blood when she smears it across her pale skin and Myka bites her lip nervously. "Fascinating..."

Claudia picks up the multi tool and pops the blade out to inspect it. It's covered in the same sort of muddy dry substance. "I'd need to do more tests, but I'm pretty sure that this is how it's gonna be from now on," Claudia says. The cut on Helena's hand is completely healed now, a faint brown line the only indication that she'd ever been cut there. "I wouldn't take a bullet to the head, but I think that most of your abilities will be the same. Without the box present, your healing may be slower."

Standing, Helena shoves her hands into the back pockets of her distractingly-tight jeans and tosses tilts her hair over her shoulder.

"Well darling, is your team still looking for another member?" There's a twinkle of devilish intent in her eyes and Myka's cheeks burn.

"I think so," Myka says, grinning.

Pete holds out his hand, and Helena shakes it firmly. "Welcome aboard," he says and Claudia bounds forward to throw her arms around Helena. They each welcome Helena in their own way, smiling and grateful that she's come.

It's enough to see her own little family shift and expand to leave room for Myka's heart, beating slightly differently, and not entirely human. Myka leans against Helena as Pete pulls Claudia aside and asks her to show him something with the nightmare box calculations. She's warm and firm and steady. She's the Artificer and yet she's just Helena. She's always been just Helena.

"I'm glad this worked out," Myka says quietly to Helena. Her voice is barely over a whisper. "I'd hate to have to take you down."

"Really darling," Helena drawls, leaning forward and pressing her lips against Myka's neck. "I'd like to see you try."

---

notes:

I'd been toying with the idea of a super powered au for a while now, but I wanted it to be logical and to fit into the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. I wanted to write something that told a story that seemed probable, but also was actually an au, so I borrowed some characters, changed a few things around, and wrote something that I think shows what an artifact retrieval team in the MCU might actually look like. Yes, I know that I'm playing fast and lose with the MCU timeline.

Yes, those two SHIELD scientists are Fitz and Simmons and for those of you who are not watching Agents of SHIELD, the Slingshot is a rocket where SHIELD sends alien tech that shouldn't be in the hands of humans into the sun.

A few notes on people's powers/abilities.
- Pete is just an average guy. I felt that his hunches were better kept as a non-mutant quality.
- Artie's power is a lot like Syler's from Heroes. He can look into things and see how they work - he sees patterns and trends and it manifests as OCD like tendencies when he's not working on a case. This is why working for the NSA as a code breaker worked so well for him.
- Claudia has an affinity to circuitry, a mental connection to computers that lets her use them intuitively.
- Myka can fly. She picks up information quickly as well, but her marksmanship and skills are all learned and not particularly aided by her mutant status.