Chapter Three

Fury stood with his back to the room, hands clasped behind him. I stepped in, looking around at Natasha. She didn't come in with me, just stood back. She nodded at me reassuringly, the door sliding closed between us. Slowly I turned back to face Fury, the room airily silent.

"You asked for me, Sir?" I said, stopping in the middle of the sparsely furnished room. There was a desk over to the side, a bookshelf near it, one rather nice, comfy looking chair behind the desk, perfect for an evil mastermind to spin around in with the 'I've been expecting you' line. The chair on the other side of the desk was much less nice.

"Agent De Luca was a good agent," He said, "You knew him?"

"Not well, sir." He turned to face me, his expression firm.

"You don't need to lie to me, Agent." He said. I looked at the floor in front of his feet, clasping my hands behind my back.

"We've talked once or twice, sir, got along reasonably well, but there was nothing more happening."

"I don't care about what or what wasn't happening," He told me, "I just want to pass on my condolences." I leaned my head to the side, frowning.

"I… thank you, sir," For a moment there was silence, "Has his family been told?"

"I was thinking that you are probably the most qualified to do that."

"Sir, I told you, there was nothing going on between us. We were just friends."

"You had dinner scheduled for next Wednesday." He pointed out. I looked away.

"Like I said, we were friends. Anton was also coming, and Cerese. All things considered, Cerese might be a better person to send. They've known each other since high school."

"I'm asking you," Fury crossed the room, closing the gap between us, "Is there a reason you don't want to go?" He asked, his voice low, mildly threatening. I shook my head.

"No, sir," I answered, "I'm just saying that I'm not the best person to be sending into this sort of situation, having been on the receiving end of it myself, not to mention I can help to find who did this."

"Both of those are reasons I'm sending you," Fury told me, "His family might know something, and you know enough about how this feels that you might be able to get information from his family that someone else might not be able to." I looked up at him in surprise.

"Is this an order, sir?"

"If it has to be, but at this point it's just a request."

"Very well, sir. Is there anyone coming with me?"

"Barton will watch your back."

"Of course, sir. We'll set out as soon as I find him."

"Then get to it." I nodded, turning an leaving the room. I didn't need to be told twice. Fury scared me a little, I will admit. He was a rather imposing man, but not exactly unlikeable. He was a little awe-inspiring, really. I didn't want to let him down. Partially because I'd quite possibly lose my job.

My room was rather cold when I woke up the next morning, condensation on the window. Slowly I looked around, surprised when I realised that I hadn't slept under the blankets at all that night, and yet I had managed to sleep through it without any difficulty. I hated the cold. Had for a while. Used to be not so bad when I was a kid. Can't remember the exact time I started hating it, but I could quite clearly remember loving going out in the snow to have snowball fights with my family. Now I hated the thought of going out in the snow, preferring the idea of staying inside next to the fire. Part of me wondered if it was just part of growing up, or if it was because I had those memories with my family and now they were gone.

I stood up, placing my bare feet on the cold floor, and crossed over to a wardrobe, flinging the doors open wide, and looked inside. There were some clean clothes there, definitely not mine, not even my style, but they would fit, even if only roughly. I was slightly taller than Natasha, whose clothes these most likely were cast offs of, even if it was only by three centimetres. I pulled a top out and pulled a slight face, knowing how Natasha usually had rather low necklines.

The top itself was quite nice looking, a darkish blue, and simple. Simple was good, I liked simple, anything too complicated became impractical. I grabbed some trousers, black Kevlar, though it was thin Kevlar and able to be worn in normal everyday situations without drawing too much attention, and then headed to an adjoining bathroom, stripping off my old clothes and stepping into the shower. The bathroom was nothing special and didn't really deserve to be admired, the main good thing about it being that it was clean. Oh, and that it had a shower. The fact it had a shower should probably have gone first.

I lost track of how long I was in the shower for, but judging by how the skin on my fingers and toes was starting to shrivel up like raisins, I'd probably been in there a while, enjoying the warm water as it ran down my skin. I got dressed fairly quickly, I'd always been pretty fast at that. How can girls spend so long getting ready in the mornings? What was so hard about changing out of pyjamas and into clothes? Or was it choosing the outfit they were going to wear? "Do these shoes go with these trousers? Or should I wear a skirt?" I simply didn't understand it, clothes were clothes. If they kept you covered and protected you from the elements, they were fine.

With these thoughts swirling through my head I stepped back into the room I had been given and looked around it properly as I wrapped my hair up in a towel and tried to dry it as best I could, which wasn't very well because I had hair that seemed to simply suck up moisture and not want to let it go. I looked at the room properly as I dried myself off. The carpet was a deep red, slightly dark in colour, and very soft to walk on. It covered the whole floor, except for just in front of the bathroom where there was a strip of dark grey linoleum. The walls had dark wood up to about 2/3 of the way up, and then they were painted a creamy colour the rest of the way up. On the ceiling was bit of texture, but other than that it was simple, plain white, and there was one large window covering the entirety of one of the walls. Opposite this was the bed, double sized, not particularly sure if it was a queen or a king or what (I was never very good with that sort of thing), which had a dark red duvet and cream sheets. The bed itself at least gave the illusion of being made out of some sort of dark coloured wood, though I had to wonder if it actually was or not. While Stark might have been rich, I couldn't understand why he'd put so much effort into a spare room which nobody might ever use.

Something out the corner of my eye grabbed my attention and I looked around, frowning. There had been something there, I was certain of it, but it was gone when I tried to look at it. I looked back around the main room, crossing over to the bed again, enjoying the feel of the plush carpet under my feet. Always out the corner of my eyes was the shadow that I had seen, but whenever I tried to look at it front on, it vanished. It gave me the creeps.

"What do you want?" I muttered, a chill creeping up my spine as the shadow moved closer to me. Was I just imagining things, or was it really there? I honestly couldn't tell, not with how my mind there was no reply, which did nothing to put me at ease. Behind me the door opened and I spun around, half expecting to see the dark shape leaving the room, but it was just Stark.

"Morning, Tyrant. You ready?"

"Two questions. One, where does 'Tyrant' come from? And two, ready for what exactly?" All thoughts of the weird shadow thing left my mind, at least for a moment, and I concentrated on Stark. Evidently he hadn't warmed up to me much, but he wasn't sounding quite so cranky when he spoke to me. If anything, he sounded too... gleeful? I sucked at description words. All I knew was that the tone in his voice put me on edge.

"Answer to question one, it comes from your name and the way you're not telling me if you hacked JARVIS before or not. Answer to question two, are you ready for us to figure out what's causing your blackouts?" I paused for a moment, then nodded my head. Sure, I wanted to figure out what was wrong with me, but at the same time, I really wasn't sure. Stark stepped aside and motioned me out the door, not saying anything else to me. I took no notice of his silence, only paying attention to the shadow following us just at the edge of my peripheral vision still.

Clint stood near the window, arms folded as he leaned against the sill while I sat in an armchair, De Luca's parents and sister sitting on the sofa opposite me. His father hand his arms around his mother while she sobbed, his sister just sitting there with a numb expression on her face. I'd only just told them that he was dead.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I told them, my voice barely audible. The father looked around at me.

"How did it happen?" He asked, his eyes brimming with tears.

"He was killed," I told him, knowing there was no point in hiding it, "We're doing everything we can to find who's responsible for his death."

"Why would someone want to kill him?" The sister finally spoke up, looking from me to Clint and back, "What did he ever do?"

"We suspect that it was someone who he worked with that killed him," I explained, "I know that this is the worst time possible to be asking this, but… Did he talk about anyone from work? Mention any arguments, anyone he wasn't getting along with?"

"The only people he talked about were his friends," The sister told us, "You in particular." I looked at the floor for a moment, then around at Clint, who was looking at me. Neither of us said anything for a moment, but both of us knew why De Luca was talking about me so much.

"He liked you." Clint stated as I led the way back to the car.

"So it would seem."

"Did you like him?"

"Not in that way," I stopped by the car, waiting for him to unlock it, watching him as he walked around to the driver's seat, "I just saw him as I guy I got along with. I didn't even realise he had a thing for me."

"Somehow none of that surprises me." Clint opened the door and got in, me quickly following his example and buckling my seatbelt. I fastened it silently, thinking as I stared straight ahead, looking out the windscreen as Clint turned the key in the ignition and pulled out. We drove in silence for a while, me just thinking about what sort of things I would have to do to try and find whoever did this, Clint thinking about whatever it was that Clint thought about.

"You know, it's been a while since I saw you last."

"So it has."

"Been a while since we even talked last."

"Yup."

"So what have you been up to?"

"Work."

"That's it?"

"Pretty much."

"What about Kurt and Jane?" I half smiled, a short scoff escaping me.

"Jane's still worried about my mental health, even after all these years. She thinks that I'm bottling my emotions up and that it's just a matter of time before I explode or do something crazy. Or both."

"You think she's wrong?" He glanced around at me, then looked back around at where he was driving.

"I think that what happened, happened. And that it was a long time ago, and that it's well past time for me to forget about it. Somehow I think that Fury has different plans, though."

"Careful what you say, he's probably got the car bugged." Clint joked, and I grinned.

"Y'know, it wouldn't surprise me." I told him, leaning my arm on the window and letting my head flop back against the headrest of the seat after taking my hair down from its ponytail. For some reason I always thought that the headrests were uncomfortable if my hair was in a ponytail. Just one of the ways these seats were designed, I supposed.

"Why do you think De Luca was killed?" I asked. Clint shrugged as best he could while driving.

"No clue. Someone wanted a way into S.H.I.E.L.D.?" He suggested.

"Maybe… But aren't there easier ways to infiltrate us than to kill a guy and throw everyone into a panic? Unless it's the panic they're after. Maybe someone's making a move?" I suggested.

"Not a nice thought if you're right."

"No, it's really not," I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, "Oh well. Better to have that as a hypothesis and hope to have it proven wrong than to not believe it to be an even remote possibility."

"You're learning fast, kid," Clint reached over and clapped me on the shoulder briefly before returning his hand to the wheel, "It's good to see you again, despite the circumstances." I smiled.

"It's good to see you too, Clint." I replied, the car falling back into silence.

I didn't know what happened after that. Major headache, panic, then nothing. My head hurt when I woke up, though, and even through my eyelids the light burnt. I raised my arm and covered my eyes with my hand, shielding them from the light.

"You okay?" A voice asked. I swallowed, trying to get moisture into my mouth, either that or to remove the sticky feeling from it, I wasn't too sure which. Could have been both.

"What happened?"

"You showed us what you could do." That was a woman's voice, which meant it must have been Natasha. If she was in the room with me, then it was probably bad. I slowly tried to push myself into a sitting position, opening my eyes and letting my arm fall to my side. Rogers was sitting on a chair next to me, looking slightly out of it, perhaps a bit confused. Natasha was in a corner, watching me closely, trying to decide if I was a threat or not. There were stitches in her head, just at the hairline. My heart started pounding in my chest as I realised what had happened.

"What did I – "

"Don't do that to yourself. It never helps." Natasha cut in, walking over to me and sitting on the end of the bed I was lying on.

"I need to know." Why didn't she understand? I'd never had an opportunity like this before, never been able to find out what I did. Even if I'd killed someone, I needed to know. Natasha and Rogers looked at each other, not saying anything, then Rogers sighed.

"It's probably easier to just show you than explain."

"That'll have to wait." Clint said as he entered the room, followed by Stark (who was wearing his Iron Man suit, which didn't put me at ease). I looked at Stark, worried, and he looked at me.

"Do you know what's causing this?"

"Yeah. But that's not all we found out."

"What else was there to find out?" This worried me. Not only had they found the cause of my blackouts... but... this 'something else' didn't exactly sound like something good, but neither did it sound like something bad. Simply... something.

"Thor's already been told."

"Told what? Stark, just spit it out would you? You're killing me here!" There was a pause (probably for dramatic effect as much as anything), then Stark stepped out of the suit and pulled a small device out of his pocket, flicking it, making a hologram appear in the air before us. Three sets of double helix or something like that, one of which just looked... wrong, one slightly wrong, the third simply normal. Stark pointed to each of them in turn.

"Normal human DNA. This is what we expected yours to look like when I took your blood, and I swear, I had JARVIS run it several times to make sure there was no mistake."

"Stop dancing around like a monkey in a circus and just tell me... what is it that you had to tell Thor?" The headache was make my heartbeat pound in my ears, only making it worse and my temper shorter.

"That is a DNA sample taken from Thor last time he was here, you know, just in case something went wrong and he got sick or something so we could make sure he didn't die and an all out war start between Earth and Asgard or something like that." Stark continued, seeming to ignore my comment and continuing with his lesson, pointing at the hologram most to the right. I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, okay. If you say so."

"The sample in the middle, the one that just looks like it's slightly mutated in places... That's yours. If you look at these points here... and here..." He zoomed in on the hologram in the middle, pointing out certain points before layering the hologram of my DNA over the hologram of Thor's, "It's the same. You're part Asgardian." I looked at Stark incredulously, shaking my head.

"There has to be a mistake. I'm not... I'm human, I always have been, there is no way that I'm part alien."

"There's no mistake. What's more, you share DNA with Thor. As far as we can tell, he's your brother." It was Banner who spoke, a cold pack held to the back of his head. I hadn't noticed him lying in another bed, staying completely silent. My eyes darted over to him and I felt like I was going to be sick. This made no sense! There was no way that Thor was my brother... or half brother... They had said that I only shared some DNA with Asgardians. The holograms had not matched up flawlessly, some of my genetics were human. They had said part Asgardian.

As much as I hated to admit it, being part alien made a certain amount of sense. For one thing, I still looked like a teenager (late teens, but still only a teenager), when I was in my twenties. I had difficulty getting drunk, in fact I couldn't remember a single time I had gotten drunk, no matter how much I tried. And then there was the fact I never felt like I belonged, how drawn I was to Norse mythology.

"I'm human." I was saying it as much to convince myself as anything. No one in the room said anything, just sat there, thinking their own thoughts. Rogers took my hand in his and made me look at him.

"You're still you. You might not be full human, but you're still Tyra Jones. It doesn't matter who your parents are or where they're from."

"Maybe not to you. But it does to me." I whispered in reply. I didn't trust my voice, didn't understand why I was so upset about this. I turned back to Stark and cleared my throat, making him jump slightly. Obviously he had been more deeply in thought than it had looked like. Why would he be so deeply in thought? He wasn't the one finding out he wasn't who – or what – he thought he was.

"What about the blackouts? You said you'd figured it out?"

"I don't know if it's a good idea to – "

"The sooner I know, the sooner we can find a way to fix it. Now tell me." Stark sighed and looked over at Banner.

"You want the honors?" Banner didn't say anything, just sat up on his bed and placed his feet on the ground, looking at me.

"We took a scan of your brain, got some results before you went crazy. You have a piece of technology implanted in your brain, our best guess is that's what causes you to lose control and forget what's happening."

"How?" If I didn't keep asking questions, I was going to lose it. This was something I had to look at with a cool head, something I had to find a way to fix.

"We think it sends electrical signals to your brain and somehow hot wires you. There are wires that have somehow been woven through your brain and attached to the limbic system, which would control what you remember and what you don't. There are other wires connected to the parietal cortex, which might be why you can't control what you're doing."

"Um... you'd be more understandable if you were speaking ancient Egyptian." Stark was looking at me with a rather amused look on his face, and Banner looked like he wanted to bang his head against a table.

"Someone has somehow implanted wires in your brain and we think, judging by where the wires are mostly located, that's why you lose control and can't remember what you've done."

"See? Why didn't you just say that in the first place? Can you remove it?"

"If you wanted permanent brain damage, maybe there's a chance, but if you don't, then currently... no. We don't have the right technology and we don't know enough about the device in your head or how they even got it there. We simply don't know enough to be able to remove it. I'm sorry." Banner looked very apologetic. I leaned back, hitting my head gently on the wall behind me, aggravating my headache slightly.

"Well, my day just got better."