She sat in an enclosed room in the helicarrier with her hands folded on the table, where Toni told her to put them after she'd broken the two way mirror across from her. She hadn't meant to, she didn't understand why she'd been able to see inside the room but she couldn't see outside of it and she'd pushed too hard on the glass shattering it.

Fury and Toni stood several feet back watching her look around herself with a cautious curiosity that softened her features and widened her eyes making her look almost innocent. "I shouldn't have to tell you the risk she poses," Fury said in a low hushed voice.

"She's been cooperating," Tony stated with his arms crossed as he narrowed his eyes at her, the way her yellow hand pressed into the metal table until it dented. Insatiably curious.

"What do we do when she decides not to?" Fury posed instead. She'd made possibly the fastest work taking Tony out and that unsettled him in the worst way. They needed to have some way of controlling her, incapacitating her should the need arise.

For a rare moment Tony was quiet as he watched her, she looked at the world with the wide-eyed mysticism of a child. "I'm not sure what it'd take to stop her," he wasn't even confident Hulk could which meant they had very few non-lethal options, "what I do know is she stopped the moment she saw I was alive. Kid's at least making an effort, until we know exactly what she's after I say we do the same."

Before either man could say anything further on the matter Agent Hill made her way to them holding the pad displaying her bioscans. At Fury's order she glanced at the alien woman before turning back to him explaining, "scans show several cybernetic enhancements, her entire skeleton appears to be made of some kind of metal, respiratory implants, enhanced neurological system which has what appears to be an access port on the base of her neck, the most living tissue other than her skin are her brain and her heart and even those have been modified."

"How about auditory sensors?" Tony asked still watching her.

Maria cast the woman another suspicious look. "Yeah, she's heard everything."

Tony nodded having reached that conclusion on his own, and without the tests to prove it he'd also guess optic enhancements as well. "I'm gonna talk to her," he said not waiting for Fury's word before he made his way to where she waited. She looked up at him with a level of trust he wasn't expecting, there was a lot about her he was having trouble piecing together. But what he said was, "it doesn't count when you're cheating." From the crease that etched between her brows he knew she didn't understand. "You're skeleton's made of metal, it wasn't a fair fight."

"I didn't ask for it," she stated with a simple innocence. But her brows drew further together. "And you showed up in armor," she reminded him.

He shrugged pulling out the chair across from her. "We'll call it a draw." Sitting he folded his hands on the table seeing her mimic him and do the same. "So who gave it to you if you didn't want it?"

"My father."

Blinking at her he took a deep breath before releasing it in a loud rush from his nose. "Yeah I'm not touching that. Look, kid, you gotta know we're not just gonna let you go," he told her bluntly. "There isn't much we can do to stop you that doesn't involve killing you, which makes the people behind me a little nervous about letting you stay. So why don't you start with why you're here and what you want and we'll see if we can't make a deal." He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest watching her closely as she considered that, she didn't have to say a word for him see what she decided. "You don't have a lot of options, Elara, the more you prolong this the less they're gonna be willing to give you. You need to cooperate."

"I have several options you just don't like them," she told him, hearing the heavy breath he took as he ground his jaw.

Narrowing his eyes he added up everything about her he knew and what he'd been noticing, and with a curt nod he stood and walked back out. "Where is it, her weapon, who has it?" he demanded as he scanned the agents around him. Seeing a man studying the retracted dagger he snatched it and marched back in to where Elara still sat and slammed it on the table in front of her. "Yeah you're right, you've got a lot of options. Let me give one, the only way you're getting out of here is killing me." He jerked his head to the sword and told her, "go ahead."
She sat looking up at him her eyes seeming to grow wider but not with anger, and after several silent moments Tony returned to his chair and crossed his arms again. "You don't wanna tell me more about why you're here, fine, we can work up to that. But you need to tell us what you want." That would be the basis for how SHIELD was gonna handle her, if she needed to be contained or if they might be able to work with her.

This time when she remained quiet Tony waited her out, seeing something vulnerable in the way she was looking at him; with her shoulders drawn in, her strange colored eyes shining, she almost looked small. Until finally she unhinged her jaw and told him quietly, "I don't wanna kill anyone anymore."

"We can work with that," Fury said coming to stand in the doorway. Tony figured it out sooner but it was clear this girl didn't want to fight, she was just scared. "But we gotta know you'll work with us, follow our laws." She seemed pretty docile now, easy to keep a handle on, but he'd seen how quick she ended a fight.

She was quiet again as she thought, again not knowing where to go from here because here was as far as she planned. "He was a tyrant," she told Fury, seeing from the severity in his eye and in the way he held himself he was in a position of power. "He hurt innocent people, I won't do that again."

He nodded stepping further into the room looking down at her. "What if I told you our job is to take out people like your father," which was more or less true and she didn't need to know it was more less. "Would you do that?"

She looked from Fury to Tony putting together the fractured bits of information she'd been collecting. "You're the good guys," she said in such a way it was clear she was looking for their affirmative.

Fury answered, "we try to be."

Considering that, and that she really didn't know what being good meant only that it was something she'd always wanted to be and felt like she'd never get to, she nodded quickly in a way one might consider almost enthusiastic.

The night was far from over, an extensive interrogation would be conducted the moment he left. Tony didn't figure she'd answer much yet but the most pressing issue on whether she was there to cause harm was at least settled. "First things first, ET, most people aren't gonna like the way you look. Does your ability to camouflage do anything for that?" Tony asked knowing even if she was cleared they couldn't just send a giant yellow woman out into the world without at least a few incidents.

She cast her eyes between Tony and Fury, looked beyond them to the few people she could see further back in the ship trying to find a common color between them but instead she saw a range from dark brown to very pale so she decided on something in the middle. The pigment in her skin warmed to a nut brown while her hair darkened to a shade close to Tony's, and she blinked at their stunned faces with her multicolored eyes and asked, "will they like this more?"

Her eyes were still a little too far apart, her neck too long, her figure too tall and willowy to be natural, but she looked human. It's what Tony had thought, and after swallowing his initial surprise at how quick her coloring changed he rose to his feet. "I know just the man with just the right high horse who might take her," he said seeing Fury's nod having considered the same thing, "I'll let him know what's going on."

"I'll call you when we're ready to meet," Fury said as he took Stark's seat across from Elara and met her cautious eye. "We've got a lot of questions, it's gonna be a long night."

…

The park was busy that sunny morning with early morning foot traffic as people hurried to work. Tony and Steve made their way to the stoic man standing with his arms crossed as he stared across the large expanse of grass.

"Alright, where's Big Bird?" Tony asked scanning the sea of faces without finding her.

Fury nodded his head to the bushes a couple hundred feet from them. "She found the flowers first, then the dog."

It curled a half smile on Steve's face as he found her kneeling beside a spaniel seeming to speak it, but Tony rolled his eyes huffing irritably. He stopped first at a cart pulling out a twenty, the closest he had to a dollar, and made his way to where Elara had turned back to the flowers having never seen such ones before. Without a word of greeting he grabbed her hand slipping the looped string around her wrist and pulling it tighter. "Stay where we can see you."

Her eyes flicked to the round red thing that floated by her head attached to her wrist. She turned, sharp eyes narrowing suspiciously, trying to see it better but it came closer and she stepped back but it came with her again. Throwing her arm back she tried to shake it loose but it kept following her.

"Stop, Elara," he sighed getting his arms around her and grabbing her wrist to keep her still. "It's a balloon," he grabbed the string and pulled the balloon down to eye level so she could see it, and still she glared not trusting it, "they're sacks of air, kids love them." He popped her on the nose with it making her jump before he let her go. "Seriously, kid, don't wander away."

Elara watched him walk back to Mr Fury and another man she didn't know, but her eyes slid back to the balloon floating once more by her head and they were carved with unhappy suspicion.

"She doesn't look like much," Steve said when Tony stopped beside them. He'd seen the partial footage JARVIS recorded before she'd cracked the suit killing the power, she didn't look like much of a fighter now.

"She has her moments," was Tony's dry response as he looked to Fury. "What'd you get out of her?"

Fury inhaled sharply before sighing, glancing briefly at where she stood eyeing another dog that was trying to get her to pet it. "Same thing she told you, her old man wants something and she won't let him get it. Other than that she's not saying much."

"She say if he'd come here to get it?"

A wry unamused smile tugged at the corner of one side of Fury's mouth. "Said he's already been here."

Tony blinked in surprised understanding. "New York, that was her father?" Of course it was, the thought of the alien he'd felt going through the black hole had his hand tightening out of reflex.

"Said if he got his hands on what she was trying to keep from him New York would seem like a game, that's all she'd say." Fury watched Tony grind his jaw as he thought, about whether they should consider containing her. "She's scared of him." He'd seen something in her eyes when she spoke of him, the way they widened, that had Tony pausing.

She was going too far, something had caught her eye drawing her to the edge of the park near a bus station. "Mom can I get a balloon?"

The tired woman looked first at her son then at the cart on the other side of the park and then at her watch before sighing. "We don't have time, honey. Next time okay."

He huffed a sad sigh as his head fell, she said that last time too. Holding her hand he scuffed his shoe on the concrete trying to keep his lip from poking out because his mom would get on to him for crying.

Across the park Steve stood watching her bend down and slip the string onto the little boy's wrist. His face lit up as he held the balloon and he looked up at her with a wide smile she was happy to return. "I'll take her," Steve decided without looking at either man.

"You sure about that, Rogers?" Tony asked the same time Fury called her back through the ear piece he'd given her that morning knowing she'd want to explore.

Steve was still watching her as she walked slowly back to them, the innocence with which she stared at the world around her. And he shrugged answering, "I could use a neighbor." He waited until she reached them before he held his hand out. "I'm Steve."

She looked at his hand not knowing why he was trying to give it to her. "Mr Fury said it was a handshake," she told him seriously, a small crease etched between her brows.

A gentle smile spread over his mouth as he looked the short distance down at her strangely colored eyes. "Here, I'll show you." He reached for her hand and held it in his before shaking it. "I'm Steve, it's nice to meet you."

Her own smile was small, almost shy, as she looked at him "I'm Elara," she told him. He had kind eyes, a kindness she'd never seen, she decided he was good. She hadn't been sure about anything since she got here, but she was sure about him.