Elexis Hager is portrayed by Gigi Hadid

They were everywhere.

She could smell the death in the air. Feel it suffocating her. The bodies were sprawled out across the pavement, their blood running down the asphalt in tiny rivers. They'd been there for hours; the necrosis was beginning to eat its way across the skin and rigor mortis was setting in. Their eyes were glazed over.

But those eyes still seemed to follow her.

Her friends. Her cousins. Her siblings. All laying broken and mangled on the ground. She could hear the monsters in the background, the shouts of desperation and pain.

It was too much. It was going to suffocate her. She hadn't moved from her spot over Selina's body, cradling it. Her older sister was long gone, the light from her bright blue eyes completely out. The sight made her chest ache all over again, like her heart had been cruelly and aggressively torn from her chest.

She raised her head, looking at the sky. It seemed to burn around them, and her fingers tightened over Selina's fake armor. How could she have done that? How could she have spied like that, for Luke of all people?

Then her body moved.

She nearly jumped back in fear, but it felt like her hands were clamped onto Selina without her consent. She couldn't let go. Selina's body twitched again, then stilled.

Her heart was pounding. She couldn't let go…

And then Selina's head snapped towards her, glazed over eyes narrowing.

"It should have been you!"

She gasped so hard she hurt her throat.

Her body had jack-knifed into a sitting position, her skin soaked in sweat, the blanket she'd draped around her now tangled in her legs. She felt her fingers wrap around the golden circle that sat on the nightstand beside her, but before she could press the gem, she remembered where she was.

The pale blue walls of her room were lit up by the moonlight filtering through the blinds, their crooked rays shadowing the shapes in her room. Her armoire, the love sack in the corner, the ever-growing pile of dirty laundry beside it. She released a long breath and fell back into her bed, raising her hands to run over her face and hopefully wipe off the sweat.

Just another bad dream.

I guess Morpheus is still angry about losing, she thought grimly, doing her best not to mentally curse the god of dreams. After several deeper breaths, she rolled out of bed and stumbled towards her bathroom.

She splashed her face with cold water, allowing the brief chill to bring her closer back to earth as she braced her hands on the sink and leaned against it, breathing in deeply through her nose and out through her mouth. Just like Chiron had taught her.

A glance at the small, pink clock by the door told her she still had two hours before she even needed to be awake. But there was no use going back to bed now.

She started shrugging off her pajama top. Might as well start getting ready.

Elexis Hager had always loved doing her makeup.

It was such a cliché thing, being a daughter of Aphrodite and all. But she'd stopped trying to fight her true nature a long time ago. Now, she stood in front of the mirror and enjoyed the calming sensation of applying light concealer, curling her eyelashes, some cream blush and some bronzer. She didn't feel like going full face that day, so some pale brown eyeshadow and mascara was her final touch.

It was a warm, muggy day in New York, meaning the most she reached for in her closet was a tank top and some denim cut-offs. As she began to braid her hair, she paused at one particular strand.

Gray. It was hard to tell, blending in with the various shades of blonde around it. But she knew its exact location, she saw it every time she brushed or did her hair. If she wasn't doomed to give half a shit about how she looked for her entire life, she'd be ignoring mirrors all together.

The walk to the café was filled with the usual things. Stray dogs, kids playing in the streets, food vendors shouting out orders and names. A mother was slathering her baby in sunscreen while his siblings played in a mildly deflated kiddy pool, and two cats were fighting over a dead rat. A group of school age children laughed and jeered at each other as they rode their bikes down the street, and Elexis couldn't stop her lips from turning up into a smile.

It wasn't Stark Tower. But it was home.

Once inside the café, she flashed a grin at the young man behind the counter. "Hey, Emilio."

The dark-haired boy smiled back at her, cheeks tinging pink. Lex tried her best to ignore it.

"Can I get my usual?"

"Venti caramel latte with a shot of espresso, coming right up."

Lex nodded her thanks and slid into the booth second from the end, by the large glass window. Pulling out her laptop, she opened up her latest assignment and slipped on her glasses.

Time to get to work.

"I wish Fury would tell us why he needs two of his best tailing a teenager."

The woman rolled her brown eyes at the question that buzzed in her ear. Her short red curls blew in the wind and she adjusted the pair of reflective aviators on her face. "I feel like you've known him long enough to know that questioning him won't get you very far."

"Come on, Nat. The last assignment you and I were solo was Budapest. That was almost too much for the both of us. And now he's got us going after some high schooler as she does her homework." The man speaking raised a cup of coffee to his lips and sipped slowly, his own dirty blonde hair covered by a dark blue cap. "If there's something on her, shouldn't he have said so?"

"Well, first off, she's not a high schooler." Nat reminded him, "In fact, we have her diploma. She's nineteen years old and enrolled at the community college."

"Studying?"

"Folklore and Mythology."

"So, he wants another set of young eyes on the tesseract?"

"No," Nat's lips tugged down into a frown, her forehead creasing. "That's not it. She's barely halfway to her associates degree. I just can't put my finger on it, but there's something about this kid."

"Well, of course there is." Clint scoffed, tapping inconspicuously on his phone. "Look at her, Nat. I can't think of any other person that I've ever met, especially a child, that looks like that."

Natasha, of course, was well aware of what her colleague meant. The young woman sitting in the shop stuck out like a sore thumb among her shabby, broken surroundings. She had long, blonde hair that was braided back into a single braid. It was filled with different shades and highlights, and if you looked long enough, you'd realize there didn't seem to be the same color of blonde twice. She wasn't very tall, only about 5'3" or 5'4". But she was athletic, one could tell by her build. Maybe a gymnast?

In short, the girl was stunning.

Not only was she physically beautiful, almost flawless, but she almost glowed. Her tanned skin seemed to shimmer, but it was her eyes that really drew you in.

The first time the duo looked at her, they thought they were blue. But now, a few minutes later, they appeared green. In a few seconds, they'd consider brown, then hazel. For a moment so short, they thought they'd imagined it, they seemed purple.

Nat knew she had some type of ability. The teenager commanded the attention of everyone in the room. More so than any man or woman she'd met in her lifetime.

There were two of them.

Say what you will about ADHD, but for Elexis, it was saving her life. She'd noticed the man and woman sitting down only a few minutes into her paper. As she sat there trying to force away the headache that came with forming sentences, their movements and talking caught her attention. She tried to ignore it. Mortals were weird and there wasn't much else to it besides that.

But then they just stayed there. They were talking, but then again, they weren't. Being a child of Aphrodite meant you craved a few things, one of the main ones being attention. She could tell they noticed her, and she most definitely was aware they were talking about her. The conversation was growing more and more heated, and as the man shifted, she saw it.

The gun.

Who the hell are they? She thought, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But she wasn't going to stick around to find out.

As causally as she could, she slipped off her glasses and stood, stuffing her laptop back into her bag. She had force her movements to be calm, her heart rate beginning to pick up and her chest starting to feel tight.

Just leave, just leave…

"Elexis!"

Damn it.

Emilio stood by the counter, holding her cup, looking around with that hopeful look on his face that made her wince. "Venti caramel latte, shot of espresso. Elexis?"

A sigh pushed past her chest, her teeth grinding together. But she turned, allowing an easy, charming smile to light up her features.

"Thanks, Emilio." She told him softly, letting her fingers brush his as she took the cup. She could feel the tremble in his hand, and just to drive it home, she winked at him as she walked off. Sure enough, he was left speechless as she left the shop. Unable to say anything else that might damn her in front of her stalkers.

Nat cocked her head to the side as the young man behind the counter practically melted at the smile of the girl in front of him. But what really caught her attention was when the girl, Elexis, touched him.

The boy's face went completely slack, and his eyes glazed over. A stupid, dopey grin split his face, and he could only watch the girl leave the shop and walk down the street. Nat turned to Clint.

"Go talk to him. I'll follow her."

Of course, they'd follow her. It appeared the woman was, which made her laugh a little. They thought her abilities only worked on men; adorable.

She tried to lose the woman the old-fashioned way; she really did. She went through multiple alley's, crisscrossed down different streets. Even double-backed a few times. But the redhead stayed on her, keeping just far enough away as not to draw suspicion, but close enough to not lose her target.

Finally, Lex had had enough.

Her fingers worked deftly on the strap of her bag, fiddling with the silver buckle. Soon enough, it gave way and the beige strap slipped loose, spilling half of the contents onto the concrete.

Lex scowled and bent down to retrieve her papers, and sure enough, a graceful set of hands began picking up some of the mess.

"Are you ok?" The woman asked kindly enough, her brown eyes and double intentions well disguised behind a pair of reflective aviators. Lex put her usual knee-weakening grin on the shelf for a minute and offered a smaller, less confident smile.

"I guess coffee isn't enough to help with all the sleep deprivation." She shrugged off, and the woman smirked.

"Don't take it for granted, kid. Once you're old enough, sleep becomes a fond memory."

By now, her books and papers were crammed back into her bag and her strap had been fixed. Lex has to admit, whoever the woman was, she was quick. If the blonde hadn't been watching, she wouldn't have noticed it had been repaired.

As they stood, Lex cocked her head to the side. "I'd imagine that you got plenty last night if you planned to keep up with me throughout the rest of the day."

She'd said it so casually, the redhead almost missed it. Lex couldn't see her eyes, but she could only imagine they'd widened a little bit before the woman smirked, shifting her weight. The holster of a handgun peaked out from her jacket, just for a fraction of a second, before disappearing again.

"You're observant."

"I can't help it. I was actually born with these acute senses, believe it or not."

The woman snorted. "Then I guess you've managed to come to the conclusion that I'm not here to hurt you."

"Yeah, I'm not sure I believe the woman who's been stalking with me with nothing but a pair of aviators and baseball cap as her disguise."

"I think that's enough messing around." The woman now slid her right foot back, left shoulder coming forward in a defensive stance. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

"No." Elexis smirked. "We're actually going to do it my way."

Before the woman had a chance to question her statement, Lex spoke again, her voice taking a much richer, charismatic tone. "You don't want to follow me."

The woman paused, her movements faltering. Lex continued, laying on as much power into her voice as she could. "There's no way for you to follow me. You can't keep up with me. Who sent you after me? They must not know what they're doing."

"I…" The woman trailed off, and Lex winced. She was a strong one, that was for sure. "No… Fury… He knows…"

"He knows nothing." Lex soothed, reaching up to tug on one of the woman's short red curls. "But I do. I know that you're tired, and you want to stop."

"I want… I want to stop…"

"You need to stop." Lex assured her. "You need to turn around and walk back the way you came."

The woman still looked confused, and Lex could feel her fighting the charmspeak. She was strong-willed, almost unusually so. But in the end, she was only a mortal. After a few more seconds, she turned on her heel and walked back the way she came.

After she was out of her eyesight, Elexis Hager turned around and walked off the other direction, her shimmering blonde hair soon swallowed up by the thrumming crowd around her.

"A warning would have been nice."

Nick Fury didn't give any indication that he'd heard Agent Romanoff, only continuing to go through the thick file in front of him. However, he did turn his head just slightly towards his two best agents as they took a seat at the table next to him. Romanoff, uncharacteristically, looked a little pissed. Barton just looked bewildered.

"I figured you should see it for yourself." He responded finally, shutting the file and tossing it onto the table. It slid towards the duo, Barton smoothly taking it into his hand. "I was afraid you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Clint Barton flipped open the file, eyes scanning over the information before he began to read out loud. "Elexis Lucille Hager. Born August 1st, 1993 to Steven James Hager." He paused, then frowned. "No mother?"

Fury waved a hand. "I'll get to that. Trust me, that's a whole different subject."

Shrugging, Barton continued scanning over the file, frowning. "There's nothing in here that indicates what she's capable of, Director. She's had regular schooling, her GPA never surpassing 2.7. She was never known for any special skills in school, other than teachers using terms for her such as, 'charismatic, 'charming'," he paused, then continued, "and several even went so far as to use the word, 'manipulative'."

"I'm sure Agent Romanoff can attest to that." Fury noted, then turned to his best agent. His brown eye was dark with curiosity. He studied her, noting how the woman glared back at him. They sat in silence for several seconds before he finally spoke. "What happened?"

At first, Romanoff didn't speak. She seemed reluctant to relay to her boss one of the few moments in her career that she had been completely blindsided. But she couldn't hide it forever. Finally, she spoke. "I can't really explain it. She was just so… convincing. I found myself wanting to believe her, wanting to do what she asked. When she spoke, it's almost like she was glowing." She shook her head. "By the time I realized what was happening, she was long gone."

Barton turned to Fury as the director S.H.I.E.L.D. straightened, beginning to pace. "So, these little mind games of hers; they only work when she's nearby?"

"No." Fury shook his head. "From what we've observed, she can do it over the phone, as well. Anytime you can hear her, you're in danger of becoming a puppet. Her control is temporary, though, unless she continues to speak. The effects only hold for about ten minutes."

"So, an impossibly beautiful college student has the power to convince just about anyone to do her bidding?" Barton asked, incredulous. "Director, with all due respect, why are we still allowing her to walk around doing this? Isn't that wrong? And with this kind of power, who knows how much of a threat she is."

"You know, I thought the exact same thing." Fury agreed, nodding. "But then we spent a month observing her. Then two, then three. Here we are at five months in, and guess what she's done?"

"What?"

"Nothing." Fury stressed, bracing his hands on the table as he regarded the man and woman in front of him. "No demands. No stealing money. She hasn't even forcibly bumped up her grades. She's just continuing to live her life on the lowest radar possible."

"And you're just trusting that it's because she's a good person?" Romanoff asked, disbelief soaking her tone. Fury didn't say anything, only grabbing another file and sliding it towards the pair.

"We're about to bring her in. But here's one more piece of the puzzle; it involves her heritage."

"Her mother's?"

"No. Like I said, that's a conversation for another day."

Romanoff grabbed this one, opening it as Fury continued. "I'm talking about her father's side of the family. He passed not too long ago from an unfortunate 'accident'. Authorities found him eviscerated in his home when Elexis was only eleven. She was found hiding under a bed, saying something about monsters."

"Who killed him?"

"No one ever knew. All they found as some dust on the floor and a massive struggle around the body. No fingerprints, no bloodstains other than his own, nothing. Elexis wasn't any help, repeatedly telling the authorities that 'the monster killed her dad, and then she killed the monster'."

"Was she evaluated?"

"Sure was. And yet, the child psychologist sent her on her way with a clean bill of mental health. She was completely alone with the child for well over an hour."

"So, her powers may have manifested at a young age." Romanoff concluded, eyes flipping through the papers. "So, what's-"

Her question stopped abruptly, her eyes going almost comically wide. Barton turned to his partner and best friend, his own narrowing. "What?"

"I see you've found it." Fury noted dryly, and Barton leaned in to see what Romanoff was looking at.

"What? What are you talking about?"

Romanoff merely let him take the file, raising her gaze to Fury. "You're sure about this?"

Fury nodded, his face set like stone. "We've already confirmed it through a DNA test. You'll go straight from here to the lab; you'll be wearing a special type of hearing protection on your next mission."