Sup peeps, I'm back again with another chapter, just for you.

As always, I don't own Marvel. But, I do own this story which is now in double figures.

Enjoy.

Truth will out

It's been three weeks since Clint and Natasha had their little chat with Madison. Astraea has stepped up her training: sparring regularly with Clint, and Sam (whenever he's around), and on the rare occasion, Natasha. The Avengers invite her to training exercises with them, and Astraea readily accepts. She wants to keep as bust as possible and try to keep the new information about Madison out of her mind, but her eidetic memory prevents that. The words keep playing back to her as she tries to sleep. It's eating at her. Big time.

For now, though, she's planning on sparring against Steve at long last. The Super Soldier presents a different challenge to Astraea. She's more used to sparring against Clint and Natasha, who are much lighter than Steve and easier to take down the much heavier man. It's an opportunity to practice against larger opponents she'll probably come across on missions, as well as a chance to vent some of her pent-up emotions. Astraea doesn't really want to use someone as a human punch bag, but she figures she won't really be able to do any damage to Captain America of all people. They'll just have to wait and see.

When Astraea reaches the right floor, Steve is already there, alongside someone she hasn't seen before. She's just about to ask when the blonde-haired, muscular figure turns around and her mouth just gapes open instead. Astraea might not get sexually attracted to people, but damn, Thor is one hot person. Definitely a god. He spots Astraea and walks over, a welcoming look in his light eyes.

"You must be the Lady Astraea? I have heard much of your prowess and talents since I arrived last evening. I am Thor Odinson, and it is my pleasure to meet you." Thor offered a large hand and Astraea shook it somewhat hesitantly, having half-expected him to kiss her hand instead and bow.

"The … the pleasure's all mine, Mr Odinson." Astraea wasn't really sure what to call him. Just Thor seemed a little rude, given he hadn't stated what she could call him. "Oh, and just Astraea is fine."

"Then you may call me, Thor." He gave her a warm smile. "I understand you are here to spar with the Captain."

"Uh … yeah. Just a bit of practice. I mean, I'm not going to win, but I might learn something." She nodded towards Steve, who was doing stretches on the sparring mat.

"That is wise. If I may, I shall stay and watch to learn more about your Midgardian fighting techniques."

"Sure." Astraea was uncertain what a literal god could learn from a pair of humans but who was she to get in the way of learning. "Maybe you can teach me some Asgard fighting styles afterwards?" She questioned, a half-smile forming on her lips.

"Perhaps. Though I am not sure how useful they shall be against foes of this world."

Astraea just shrugged and muttered her goodbyes, heading over to where Steve was, so she could warm up for her match. She was nowhere near likely to win, but she might as well give her all. Plus, she now had an audience watching. Granted, it was only one person, but that one person was the god of thunder. Not your average gym buddy.

After a ten-minute warm-up, both sparring partners were standing ready on the mat. Astraea was nibbling her bottom lip, both nervous and excited for the coming match. Nerv-cited. Steve, however, looked ready to go, already standing ready in a fighting stance. He was giving her a gentle smile, as though he could see the nerves bubbling through Astraea like a torrent of rain. She looked to one side to see Thor watching intently; he gave her a thumbs-up as soon as he noticed her glance. Astraea gave a cautious smile back.

"So, " Astraea bounced on her toes, bringing her arms up in front of her torso, "if we do a weapons round, do I get to pick my own weapon? And am I allowed to pick Thor to be my weapon?" She gave a cheeky grin, channelling her nerves (as usual) into jokes and banter.

Steve gave a small smile but shook his head. "I think Thor is just watching today. Maybe he'll be happy to do so next time? I thought we'd spar with weapons, anyways. Let's just try hand-to-hand before we add weapons into the mix. It's important that you can hold your own against a larger enemy without weapons."

Astraea nodded. Right. Captain America, always the strategist, thinking of how best to use people's abilities for the most efficient and least costly outcome. The past month in the Tower had given her a great deal more information on how these people worked, even if it was only a tiny bit. From this, Astraea had come to the conclusion, doubtless as others before her, that Steve was definitely a natural leader and possibly the only one who could keep such a bunch of diverse individuals under control on a mission. But also someone they would follow without question. After only four weeks interacting with the man, Astraea was already seeing why. She'd be happy to do so herself. Steve was someone you could easily respect and trust.

They took up positions, facing each other across the mat. JARVIS sounded a beep in a pre-arranged signal to start the match. Astraea leapt forwards, vaulting high in a move taught by Natasha. But Steve manages to duck under her flying body. He flips over to kick her. Astraea barely dodges, leaning backwards, and snapping out a few quick hits. Her blows seem little a distraction to the powerful super soldier. Steve moves in to attack. Astraea scrambles away, blocking blows with her arms. A large fist collides with her torso. She falls down, landing on her bottom. Waiting until Steve leans over to hit, Astraea slides under his legs. Popping up on the other side, she drives a low kick at his knees. Steve stumbles but doesn't fall. Astraea flips to the other end, trying to plan her next attack.

Two seconds later and Steve is barrelling towards her. Astraea launches herself up and over him. But he catches her leg and brings her down. She swings onto her back, leaning backwards to pull his weight against him. He tips backwards, but rolls, leaving Astraea underneath. She squirms and kicks hard with her legs trying to dislodge him. Both arms are held fast in one of Steve's hands. Unable to get free, Astraea concedes the fight.

She walks over to a bench, seizing her towel and wiping off her sweaty body. They had planned a few rounds, and the next was blindfolded. Astraea had insisted on that one; she wanted to hone her enhanced hearing for better use in the dark. Of the Avengers, only Tony would stand a chance in pitch-black conditions with the suit. But Astraea knew she could use her hearing to locate things based on the sounds bouncing off them. It was something blind people could do, copying dolphins that used the technique like sonar. Plus, she might be able to beat Steve when blindfolded. While the captain did have enhanced hearing, it wasn't to the same degree as Astraea's.

Astraea was disappointed she didn't hold up so well against Steve but Thor seemed to think otherwise. "That was most impressive sparring against the Captain, Lady Astraea. Even Lady Natasha, with all her training, can find it difficult to fight against Steven."

"Uh … thanks." Astraea was a little unsure what to say. "It wasn't really that good. Anyways, you can just call me Astraea. I'm not fancy enough to be called Lady. Madison says that … " She froze, still not comfortable with talking about her friend. If that's what they were. Ever since hearing the bit about how Madison might have been placed with Astraea specifically because the latter was enhanced made Astraea rethink every moment. Their friendship had felt real, and Astraea wants to believe it was. But she was starting to doubt everything and hadn't been able to broach the subject to Madison yet. They hadn't an awful lot of time together between Astraea's training and Madison going to university for most of the day. Astraea was often asleep early now; her training sessions were intense, but building up lot's more skills, and more muscle making her frame much leaner and stronger than ever before.

"Says what?" Thor inquired softly, clearly sensing a troubling subject.

"Ah … ha … nothing. Slip of the tongue." She busied herself with finding her blindfold. "Wish me luck for round two."

He gave her a large grin. "Good luck, La – Astraea. May the All-father bless you in this match."

"Thanks, Thor." Astraea smiled back, twitching her blindfold over her eyes and stepping back onto the mat.

Opposite her, Steve is also wearing a blindfold. Not that Astraea can see that of course. But Thor is watching and would probably call him out if he wasn't. JARVIS sounds the beep again, and they begin.

Astraea takes a cautionary step forward, listening to Steve's surprisingly quiet footfalls. He's moving around the edge of the mat, waiting for her to move forward. She cocks her head and remains still, waiting until his heartbeat is closer – close enough for her to strike.

Ten seconds pass and Astraea lashes out with a flurry of punches. They hit hard muscle. She takes a step back, but Steve sends out a kick. It knocks her further backwards. She flips backwards. Air-born movement is harder to detect than footsteps. Much harder. Steve is moving closer. Astraea circles around him, bobbing down to about knee-height. She isn't very practised in just sound fighting yet. Her leg spins round in a blow to the back of the knees. Steve tumbles forwards with a thud. Astraea steps forwards, kicking at about the right spot. But Steve feels the breeze from her movement and strikes. A fist closes around her ankle and Astraea can't move. He pulls her down but loosens the grip as he stands. Astraea crawls away and reclaims her feet. She stops, focusing everything on what she can hear. Steve's footsteps seem magnified, moving towards one corner of the mat. Astraea launches in that direction. Her body collides with another. They smack into the floor. Astraea puts her arm against Steve's throat. Steve moves beside her, clambering back up. Astraea sends a knee into his stomach, determined to win the fight. She presses her forearm down more, and Steve concedes.

Booming clapping echoes through the gym. Astraea pushes off the floor, removing her blindfold and offering a hand to Steve. He accepts, smiles, and removes his own blindfold. Thor is beaming.

"That was most interesting fighting! I believed you would be stumbling around without your vision but you two proved just as good without." Thor applauds them loudly for a few minutes more.

"Thanks, Thor," Steve says, before turning to Astraea. "You always seemed to know where I was. I could hear your footsteps, but not enough to find you as easily blindfolded. Good ears." He gave her a significant look.

Astraea nibbled her lip and shuffled her feet, uncomfortable. "Yeah … um … I can hear like in a 6-storey radius. Oh, and heartbeats – if you're close enough. But that's only within a few metres." She looks down. "Kinda a side effect, from some medicine my mum had for her illnesses and pregnant with me."

Steve gave her a thoughtful look. "I wonder if you were on SHIELD's list of known enhanced? Perhaps not, if you weren't born here. Still, they have connections all other the world. It seems a little strange that you ended up living not so far from the Avengers, given your abilities. I can't help but wonder if it was really chance, or if that medicine and your mother being pregnant was really an innocent coincidence. Did the people who gave it to her know she was pregnant?"

"Uh … yeah? I think Dad said she was about 4 months at the time – must've been enough to show a bump." She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"What if they wanted to test how this drug would affect children born after someone had it in their system? If the effects would be passed to the offspring? But, to avoid, suspicion, offer it as a miracle cure to the desperate people without long to live. A cure."

Astraea didn't like where Steve was going with this. "Are you suggesting that my mum ended up being part of an experiment to see if this drug could produce super-powered children? That … that can't be right. My parents would never … It can't be true. Why would they … " Then Astraea realised. "Oh. An army. They could collect the children and train them up from near birth."

Thor stepped forwards. "But why hasn't Astraea been taken then? Surely it is obvious that she is enhanced."

"Maybe not. Abilities like hers might be easier to hide. Enhanced learning and memory – not exactly as easy to track, could just be a clever child. Enhanced hearing, again subtler than something like being able to control fire. Enhanced strength – unless anything really strange occurred, I don't think they'd notice anything unusual," Steve mused, a light growing in his eyes. "No, I don't think they would have noticed unless they didn't want to take the children. Could have been for a different purpose. Testing on strangers, before testing on their own people. Seeing if it works better on naturally produced children over those born in a lab."

Astraea shuffles uncomfortably. "Unless it was SHIELD. Then they would have lots of people to put on their enhanced list. Or Hydra, behind SHIELD's back. They would need access to the list of known enhanced and would be able to add anyone it was successful on. This would mean SHIELD would track them anyways, and Hydra would have even more information to go on."

Silence follows her words.

"Well, we'll have to look into this when we've dealt with Loki's sceptre. Only the Sokovian base now, and we should have that mission prepared by next week." Steve finishes the earlier conversation, moving on swiftly. "I assume you'll want to come?"

Astraea nods. "I've been training a lot, but it's the real world where you find out if you're any good. I need to go."

"The more, the merrier." Thor claps her on the shoulder, and Astraea's knees shake. "I shall be honoured to fight beside you."

"Me too." Astraea nods to both men before grabbing her bag and leaving the gym.

Both men (super soldier and god, rather) watch her leave, conversing quietly. Seems like there's a lot more to the teenage vigilante than any of the Avengers anticipated when they recruited her.

oOo

An hour later, and Astraea has showered and changed clothes, now relaxing in the large living room, reading Lord of the Rings. The door bangs open, and Madison walks in. Astraea looks up, startled to see her best friend home earlier.

"Uh … wasn't expecting you home so earlier," Astraea comments, gaze not reaching Madison's face.

"Class was cancelled." Madison's voice in unusual stilted, reading the thick tension in the room. "I think we need to talk about why you keep avoiding me."

"What?!" Astraea feigns outrage. "I'm not … I haven't been ignoring you."

"You have. Even now, you won't look me in the eye. There's something bothering you and I have a nagging feeling I know what. So, we're going to sit down and talk. Don't try to leave, or I'll ask JARVIS to lock us in here until you have this conversation with me. But first, you tell me why you're avoiding me. Now."

Astraea sighs and closes her book. "I … I heard that conversation you had – the one with Clint and Natasha. About you and … " Her hand closes into a fist. "Tell me, was it a coincidence that you ended up being my roommate? Or was something else at work? Maybe it was Hermes?"

Madison visibly flinched at the last word but moved to sit on the seat opposite Astraea. "I thought you'd heard that talk. The way you acted afterwards, and the way you kept avoiding my looks. You started going to the gym more and beating up a lot of punching bags, or so I hear. You couldn't just talk to me, Rhea? Would that have been so hard?"

"Don't patronise me!" She snapped, fire glowing in her brown eyes. "I was afraid that I maybe had a Hydra agent living with me after what Natasha said. But I couldn't believe that. Still, you might've mentioned that you worked for freaking SHIELD. An organisation that also tracks people like me. Someone an ex-agent, if that's what you are, ended up living with an enhanced. Seems a little strange, right? Don't you think so, Agent?" Astraea spat the name at her.

"Don't throw that at me like it's something to be ashamed of. So, I didn't tell you – big deal. I don't recall you telling me about your abilities."

"That was different!"

"How?"

"Because … " Astraea threw her hands up. "Because I stop petty criminals and the occasional gang. SHIELD operates in multiple countries and kills other people. They manipulate and they control and they turned out to have Hydra in them all along. I can't trust an organisation like that."

"The new one is clean. But I wanted out. So, I left." Madison stares her friend straight in the eyes. "I couldn't stay after what happened. Five of my team turned out to be Hydra. And they killed … " Tears prick in her eyes. "It was three against one. And they pushed him out." She breaks down a little.

"What … what happened? This is what happens in your nightmares, isn't it?" Anger made way for Astraea's concern for her best friend. "You can tell me. You know that." She wrapped her arms around her friend.

"We … we were returning from a mission. The message came through, from Captain America. In our STRIKE team, we had … had eight people … four in each helicopter. My brother was alone in one with three people who turned out to be Hydra. The comms weren't working and … and we couldn't hear anything. Next minute and my brother is falling. I'm shouting 'Lucas, Lucas, what happened?'. He … he doesn't hear me … and he didn't survive. Tana and I are left with the other Hydra members. The pilots were Hydra too. We managed to kill them all. Tana flew us back. SHIELD was … was burning and … " She looks up at Astraea, fierce fire burning through her gaze. "They tried to recruit us – right after they sent Lucas to his death. They were monsters, but they were my friends. We had to kill them. Had to survive."

Silence falls. The only sound is the girls' heavy breathing.

"What … what happened after that? How did you leave SHIELD?"

"We got a message from Fury – he needed a copter and noticed that we'd sent a message saying Tana and I had taken control. We flew him to the Triskelion and caught Sam when the helicarrier crashed into the building. I handed in my resignation after that. I couldn't … couldn't keep doing it after that … " Madison looks up, eyes rimmed with red, tears dripping down her cheeks.

She doesn't look like one of those 'sexy' women crying in a movie, Astraea thinks, but it looks real: it's real pain and anguish and emotion shining through a runny nose and splotchy eyes. No one looks beautiful when crying, but they are beautiful because they cry and the emotions they put into it.

"And that's why holding your hand wakes you up from your nightmare; you've got someone from falling," Astraea muses, rubbing circles on her friend's back.

"Yes. It's just … just something to anchor me … especially after I knew - after I properly knew that you were doing all sorts of dangerous shit almost every night. I saw you fall and fall and fall – there was nothing I could do to save you." She sniffles and snuggles further into Astraea's embrace. "It haunts me every night. The day five out of eight in the team turned out to be Hydra. Alicia. Mariana. Thomas. James. Other James." Madison counts the names off on her fingers. "They were friendly and bubbly and nice. But then they all showed something that had been hidden. Traitors … to us, to SHIELD, to the whole fucking world."

"So, you left. A year ago, almost exactly by now. You left Agent Lance, and 'Hermes' behind."

"Yeah … Hermes. I was the jack of all trades, master of none. That's what my codename came from. When I first joined at 15, straight out of the science academy SHIELD had, I was a computer technician. Then I was a communications specialist. I moved to PR. I was a lab technician. I joined a STRIKE team at 18. Lucas only joined that one because he wanted to protect me. If I could have just … just decided on something non-field maybe – "

"Hey!" Astraea cuts her off, pushing Madison upright and looking her in the eye. "Don't go down there. There was nothing you could do. End of story. It was not your fault. Yes? Not. Your. Fault. Okay? It was never your fault."

"How can you say that? If I hadn't been on STRIKE, Lucas wouldn't have joined … and then he wouldn't have been there. He wouldn't have been … been pushed out …." Dry sobs wrack her body again.

"No." Astraea shakes her head, firm. "No. It was not you. Those people decided to join Hydra – it was they who killed your brother. They chose to push their friend – not you. You weren't at fault." Madison nods vaguely and Astraea decides to move the subject on. "So, how'd you end up rooming with me?"

"Oh, well Fury made the arrangements with the Uni, to get me in sharing with someone who he trusted with one of his agents. I didn't know who you were. I mean, I had seen your name on the list of enhanced before, but I never connected the two together until I saw you in action. And all the little injuries you had, the way you never seemed to get ill – even with a bug going around campus – and how you always seemed to pick new skills up easily. I remembered your name because I thought it was curious – how your mum just happened to pregnant when she got given the drug."

"Well," Astraea swallowed heavily, voice choking with emotion, "I'm glad he chose you to go with me. For what it's worth. I'm glad you're my best friend. Love you, Mads."

"Love you, too, Rhea." She leaned against the cushions, looking at Astraea through her eyelashes. "You don't think it's weird though, that SHIELD had that information, but also the fact itself."

"Uh … We did talk about it – Thor, Steve, and I – during training a little. They thought it could have been Hydra but I'm not really certain that it – "

"Wait?! You meet Thor! Damn, you could've mentioned it. I want to meet a god, too." Madison pouted and Astraea laughed.

"I'm sure you will. He does only live a few floors above us."

"Right. Yeah. Um … on with the bit you said about Hydra."

"Uh, right. Steve thought they might have been intentionally testing it on those who were pregnant – to see if the effects passed to the offspring. I suggested Hydra because it was inside SHIELD and they had a list of enhanced people, by the sound of it. I think Thor and Cap think it was Hydra. But I can't believe that … surely my parents wouldn't do something like that – if they knew."

"People do dangerous things when they're desperate, Rhea," Madison added, softly.

"I know. I just wish I had all the answers."

"Sometimes knowing everything makes it worse. You could find something out that you'd rather had been kept hidden all along."

"Truth will out," Astraea stated, confident. She would find the answers to the secrets of her enhancements and hopefully bash a few Hydra heads along the way – for Madison and all the others who had to suffer at their heads. Astraea was ready to serve out some revenge. Her codename wasn't Nemesis for nothing.

Well there we go, some revaltions about Madison's past and some questions about Astraea's past.

Next week, we get to go to Sokovia.

Hope you've enjoyed.

How did you find Madison's past? Antything you expected, or not?

Until the next time,

Look-for-the-miracles