.alexandra.
Alex looked around as they entered a very high security airplane situated in an even more secure building.
"This is S.H.I.E.L.D.?" she asked as she sat down, not sounding very impressed with the fact.
Romanoff nodded. She frowned at her, buckling her seatbelt. "Well, it isn't very secure. I've hacked into this database at least three times before."
Both of them stared at her. "What- how-"
She smirked at them. "Oh, I did it once right after I turned gold, you know, to figure out how to cloak myself-"
"So that's where you got the information," Fury muttered.
"-once while you guys were talking to me about the Avengers-" Alex grinned at the stupefied expressions on their faces.
"-and once while Black Widow here was driving me to HQ." She finished.
They both gaped at her. Directory Fury seemed to find his voice first. "I can understand the first time- S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't quite as secure then as it is now, but the next two times? Would you care to explain, Miss Jennings?"
"Right, so while you guys were talking to me, I took a pic of her", here she jerked her head at Natasha, "ID card. Don't ask how. I'm not going to tell you. So basically that gave me, what, Level 7 clearance? And from there it was way easier to hack my way through."
When neither of them responded (except for a pointed glare from Fury to Romanoff), she cleared her throat and continued. "So the second time when I was on the motorcycle, there was an ID chip embedded in the wheel. Turns out that motorcycle isn't actually yours, Romanoff."
Black Widow shrugged. "Well, someone had carelessly left it lying around. Who would I be if I didn't use it?"
Alex grinned, and continued. "It belongs to an agent with the name of Maria Hill, I believe?" At Natasha's slightly guilty nod, she replied, "She has pretty good clearance, better than yours actually, Widow."
She pulled out her phone from her pocket, and brandished it. "It's still downloading, but in about 10 minutes I'll have access to a lot of valuable information."
Both of them seemed like they were about to panic. Fury spoke up. "Could you not do that?"
Alex shrugged. "Sure. You can owe me a favour sometime, Director." Then she reconsidered.
Then the plane came to a smooth stop, and Romanoff stood up. "We're here."
Alex looked outside and barely stifled a gasp.
They were on a giant ship in the middle of the ocean.
.marie.
Australia, two years ago...
To the nearby onlookers at Sydney Airport, Australia, the 15 year old girl in a green dress was just a girl, nothing more.
They were completely, utterly wrong.
She was no ordinary girl.
Her name was Marie Ariadne Veritas.
But the world knew her as Lady Liberty.
A superhero.
:o:
"This is your captain speaking. Please buckle your seatbelts. This aircraft will soon be experiencing turbulence. I repeat, please buckle your seatbelts. We will be heading through turbulence soon."
Marie sighed and buckled her seatbelt. She wasn't honestly scared of turbulence, especially since this was only a short flight from Sydney to Tasmania.
Not after she'd been buffeted by a storm with only her own powers to keep her in the air.
But no one else on this plane knew that, so she complied.
:o:
One year ago, she had been too close to the site of a meteorite crash.
She'd been knocked out by the impact.
When she woke up, her hands were glowing green.
It turns out that the meteorite may not have been exactly what you'd call normal.
So now she wasn't either.