Elexis meets a new friend and some violent bonding over mutual childhood trauma ensues.

Seven days.

Seven days of training within the SHIELD facility. Seven days of this stupid bracelet restricting what felt like a part of her. Seven days of wondering when the first monster would come knocking. Seven days of awkwardly getting to know her long-lost great-uncle.

And seven days of wondering why shit like this always happened to her.

On the eight day, Lex found herself flat on her back, staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. It was around five in the morning. A few hours earlier than she'd normally wake up to get schoolwork done, but she couldn't sleep anymore. Selena's eyes were torturing her again, always there whenever she closed her own. Whenever she fell asleep, she could still smell the death in the air. It made her stomach turn, and she finally sat up with a sigh.

Might as well take advantage of the empty gym right about now. Training for the agents didn't normally start until seven.

Dressed in some shorts and a tank top, she stepped into the large room. The floor was covered in mats, with punching bags and training dummy's scattered throughout the room. A table over on the south side of the room was covered in weapons, and Lex stepped closer, eyeing them carefully. Soon enough, her eyes came across a pair of small, silver daggers.

Those.

Her fingers curled around the handles of the daggers, sighing softly at the familiar feeling. They weren't her own, but they were close enough.

She looked around, her currently-forest green eyes falling on a line of targets on the west wall.

A smile curled over her lips.

Natasha Romanoff had never been particularly good at sleeping. Ever since she'd left the Red Room, she found the rest becoming more and more elusive. There were times she found herself thinking of her childhood. More specifically, her sister.

Of course, Yelena hadn't been her biological sister. They'd lived together for three years for that assignment in Ohio. But it didn't stop the sting in her chest whenever she thought of the little blonde's screams as she was dragged away. As they were separated to be trained, hardened, destroyed and psychologically rebuilt. There wasn't a day that went by that Nat didn't wonder if Yelena was ok.

Or regret not going back for her.

And so, the redhead found herself walking towards the training room, wrapping her hands and craving the feeling of her knuckles on the punching bag. But as she got closer, she paused. Soft grunts and thwacks! were filling the air as she approached the door. Silently, she opened the door and peered inside.

Elexis Hager was currently flipping and fighting across the floor, surrounded by training dummy's and slicing at them with two sharp, wicked looking daggers.

As someone who had been trained since literal birth to be a master assassin, Natasha could appreciate good combative skills and could tell how long someone had been training. And this girl had to have been training for years. Her prowess and skill with the daggers was something she couldn't say she'd ever seen before. It almost looked like she was dancing, her movements were so fluid.

Finally, the younger girl grew tired. She slashed across the training dummy's stomach, a move that would have surely eviscerated a living human, and stilled. Panting, she straightened and walked over to the weapons table. That's when Natasha decided to make her presence known.

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

Elexis startled, whipping around holding her knives in a defensive position. Her silver cuff caught the bright lights, and Nat held back a wince.

Upon seeing the woman in front of her, the girl rolled her eyes. They shifted from hazel to a pale blue. "Don't bother trying to strike up a conversation. I was just leaving."

"Couldn't sleep, huh?"

Elexis paused, but then continued with putting away the knives and moved to grab her bag. Nat watched her movements carefully, noting something in the glaring white lights.

"Aren't you a little young to have gray hairs?"

"Aren't you a little old to be meddling in my business?"

"I'm just making conversation-"

"Yeah, and I'm avoiding you." Lex snapped at the woman, stopping her walk past the woman and whipping around to face her. "You and your little Robin Hood buddy are the ones who brought me into this, so forgive me if I don't want to feel like braiding hair and gossiping. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. Alright?"

She whipped around, determined to stomp out and take a cold shower. But the redhead's voice stopped her again.

"How young?"

Lex's steps halted, and she turned, narrowing her eyes in confusion. "What?"

"How young were you when you started training?"

A cold feeling snuck into Lex's chest. She swallowed, then spoke, her voice low and dangerous. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do." The woman, Romanoff, wasn't speaking in a derogatory or calculating tone. She simply spoke as if she knew exactly what she was talking about, like she was stating a well-known fact. "You started training, and not just regular training, but to kill. You've been taught since a young age that it was you or them-"

"Shut up."

"-that if you didn't know how to do it, that if you weren't good, you'd be dead within a year. You knew you didn't have much choice-"

"I said stop talking-"

"-and that's why you're so angry. You hate something in your past-"

"If I have to say it again-"

"-and as much as you run from it, a part of you knows it'll catch up eventually."

"I said shut up- AHHHHHH!"

This shock was so much worse. It ripped straight through her arm and into the rest of her bones, causing her muscles to seize and making her back arch. She dropped to the floor, trembling and sweating. For a good minute, she couldn't even move. Only lay there and press her cheek into the cold mat, trying to gain her strength back and recover, panting heavily.

Footsteps approached her, and Romanoff's voice sounded. "Shit. We told him to go easy on you. Here, get up."

A hand landed on her shoulder, but Lex's intentions were past simply standing. Sitting up and rearing back, she cracked her fist between the woman's eyes with all her might.

Nat shouted, stumbling back only a little before she fixed herself, staring in fury and shock as Lex stood. Her eyes had shifted to a violent shade of purple, and they were burning in fury as she began stalking forward.

"Don't think I've forgotten that you're the reason I have this stupid, fucking thing on." She snarled, then swung again. This time, however, Nat was ready. She leaned back, reaching up and latching onto the girl's tiny fist. She twisted down and to the side, and Lex shouted in anger and pain before rearing up her foot and knocking it directly into Nat's leg.

The assassin was brought to one knee, but that didn't stop her. Not relinquishing her grip on Lex's hand, she followed the momentum and rolled forward, flipping the blonde onto her back.

A pained grunt flew past Lex's lips, but she recovered just in time to miss Nat's foot nearly stomping on her. Rolling to the side, she kipped up and roundhouse kicked, her right foot missing Nat's stomach by about an inch.

They were dancing now, Lex on a furious and blinded assault as Nat skillfully ducked and dodged backwards. Soon enough, though, the assassin knew she'd start to run out of room. So, on Lex's final kick, she caught her leg, turned, and threw her into the pile training dummy's.

Lex cried out as her back and limbs exploded in pain, crashing hard into the rubbery material and the heavy bases they sat on. Her body hit the ground after, bouncing slightly and the momentum sent her rolling across the floor.

Hands grabbed at her arms, pulling her to her feet as she groaned and then an arm circled around her throat before she could stop it. Her eyes widened and she began to buck and scratch at the chokehold Nat held her in.

"You need to calm down!" The older woman growled/panted, but Elexis wasn't even close to done.

With a shriek of fury and indignation, she threw her elbow back and felt it make contact with the woman's stomach. As she lost her breath and her diaphragm spasmed, Lex planted her foot between Nat's, grabbed her arm, threw back her hips and threw the assassin into the ground. Now too blinded by rage to really see straight, she didn't wait for the woman to get up before throwing her foot into her gut. The woman grunted, flinching back from the force of the kick. Elexis kicked again, but Nat was ready this time. Grabbing her leg, she twisted and brought the girl to the ground with her, grappling until she was on top of her.

"Hey! Hey! That's enough, get off her!"

A pair of impossibly strong arms grabbed Nat, all but throwing her off Lex. She rolled, coming to her feet to see Steve Rogers now helping the younger girl to her feet, blue eyes blazing in confusion and fury.

"What the hell's going on in here?" He demanded, standing between the two women.

Lex jabbed her chin towards Nat, now-aquamarine eyes brimming with loathing as she panted, "Why don't you ask her? In fact, while you're at it, why not ask about my jewelry?" She mockingly shook her cuffed wrist in the air. "She knows all about it."

Not wanting to wait around for more questions, the blonde grabbed her things and stalked off.

Steve marched down the hallway, struggling to take deep breaths. His bright blue eyes were set on one goal: Director Fury's office. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be there, but he wasn't going to be following orders right now. Right now, what mattered what his family and his family was being hurt for some reason. And he intended to find out why.

As he neared the door, two men in SHEILD uniforms stepped forward. "Mr. Rogers, this is a restricted area, I'm afraid-"

"Son," Steve cut him off with a hand, "either you let me in that room, or I find a way in myself. Your choice."

Both guards tensed, their hands sliding towards the service weapons strapped onto their right hips. "Mr. Rogers-"

"Stand down."

A new voice shattered the tension, and Steve whipped around to see Fury standing behind him, hands behind his back and watching him with his single, brown eye.

"Why don't we talk in my office, Captain?"

"What's on her wrist?"

Steve didn't bother to try skirting around the subject. As soon as his ass was in the chair, he wanted answers. Fury glanced at him, then sighed and sat down.

"I really think this would be a conversation better had with your niece."

"I'm not talking to her, I'm talking to you. Man-to-man. So, tell me. What is that thing on her wrist?"

Fury was silent for a beat, watching him carefully, before sitting forward with his hands interlaced.

"Cap, when you first met Elexis, you upset her on accident. Started talking about her father. And she got angry, right?"

Steve started to ask how in the world he knew that, then stopped. Security cameras. Of course. Was there anything in this age that wasn't being recorded? He sighed defeatedly.

"Yeah, she did."

"And when she got mad, she started to shout at you. Started to tell you to be quiet. You remember?"

"Yeah, and then she got shocked by that-"

"Captain, listen to me. When she started to tell you how to stop talking, do you remember how you felt?"

Lex's face didn't relax from it's scowl as she finished stuffing clothes into her backpack. Opening her door, she waited until the rotating camera was facing the other direction, and immediately started down the hallway, making sure to check around her to avoid being spotted or followed.

"Well, yeah." Steve responded, confused. "I felt bad that I'd upset her, I wanted to stop talking to avoid upsetting her again."

"And don't you think it's a little strange that you suddenly went from wanting answers to wanting to shut up," Fury snapped his fingers, "like that?"

In truth, Steve did find it a little strange, but he wasn't sure he liked Fury's tone while he was talking about his niece. "What are you getting at, here, Director?"

The guards were busy with a busted air vent. Something had knocked it clean off the wall. Instead of questioning what could have done it, Lex simply thanked the gods for at least a little bit of good luck and snuck past them. Before they could see her, she blended in with a group of interns walking out, nearly bouncing in excitement when she felt the warmth of the sun on her face.

"What I'm saying is that your great-niece has some family secrets that would probably be better told in person. I've avoided saying anything, but all I can tell you is, that bracelet? I have to keep it on her until I know it's safe for myself and everyone in this building?"

Steve snorted. "Look, I watched Elexis beat up Miss Romanoff. She's got skill, but I highly doubt she could take on all the agents in SHIELD's headquarters."

"I'm afraid her skills in combat, while something to marvel at given her age, are not what I'm talking about."

Steve could feel his patience running dry. He ran a hand over his face. "Then what the hell are you talking about, Fury?"

She was rounding the corner into an alley, fiddling with the stupid silver cuff and trying to figure out how she could get it off when a seductive hiss stopped her cold.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?"

Fury smiled ruefully, leaning forward to place his elbows on the desk and lacing his fingers together.

"With all due respect, Captain Rogers, I think that's a conversation better had between the two of you."

Slowly, terrified, her heart in her ears, Lex turned and felt her heart drop to her stomach.

"Oh, shit."

Oh, Lex. Your luck really is awful.

Just so no one is confused, this first book is set Post TLO and pre-Avengers. After this book, we'll jump into the next one, which will take place from the first Avengers. And then, the books will follow the movies. I'm so excited!

I know this one was short, but it was just kind of a filler. Next one will be MUCH longer.