This is wonderful!" Selvig said delightedly as he gazed around the secret lab Loki had brought them to. "The Tesseract has shown me so much. It's — it's more than knowledge, it's truth."

Loki smiled triumphantly as hand gripped his scepter. "I know," he agreed, "It, uh, it touches everyone differently." He glanced at Clint working at a distance. "What did it show you Agent Barton?"

"My next target," Clint said without missing a beat, making Selvic break into a laugh.

"Stick in the mud. He's got no soul. No wonder you chose this, this tomb to work in!"

"He didn't," Seren strode down the hallway from the opposite end, "I did. If anything were to happen, this place is a fortress. Various points of disadvantage for S.H.I.E.L.D."

Loki's smile spread into a wide grin. "Intelligent," he remarked. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has underused you, Celessian. Tell me, has the Tesseract revealed any truth to you?"

Seren's eyes were a bright blue when they landed on Loki. "It showed me peace," she replied, unknowingly startling the trio of men. Loki seemed a bit disappointed that was it. "I have always been two different people — S.H.I.E.L.D. uses me as Stardust and Seren Soul is like a temporary identity until I return to work. One alien, one human — the never ending dilemma."

"Ah," the smile returned to Loki's face, "That—" he pointed at her with the scepter, "—is something I can understand. Where, oh where, do you belong? You are neither nor..."

Seren nodded. "I carry it in silence but the tesseract has freed me of those burdening thoughts. I am one now."

"And who would that be?"

Seren's fists on her sides glowed a bright orange with star matter. "What S.H.I.E.L.D. told me the world would see me as: the alien."

"Seren!" Chloe exclaimed, unknowingly pulling Seren out of her thoughts when she and Steve finally managed to get inside the room. Chloe was about to run towards her bed when Steve yanked her right back. He had immediately noticed the peculiar silver metal bands around Seren's wrists, not to mention the look of horror on Seren's face.

"Seren?" he called her name softly. She refused to look at either of them.

"She doesn't need to wear those," Chloe snapped at the doctor who'd walked in behind them. "She's already afraid of you people—"

"I asked for them, Chloe," Seren said in a low mutter.

Chloe stammered. "Wh-what? But you hate—"

"What are they?" Steve had to ask.

"They cancel out Agent Soul's abilities," the doctor answered and walked up beside Seren's bed, "As protocols demand, we put them on her when she was unconscious and took them out when we were certain that she'd been freed from Loki."

"And then I asked for them to be put back on," Seren left it clear for everyone in the room. She still refused to look at any one of them. "So don't yell at Dr. Erin, alright? I hate doctors but she's just following my requests."

"But...but what do you mean they 'cancel' your abilities?" Steve asked, daring to step forwards to get a better look at them. "Are they...are they hand-made or...?"

"You don't buy those at Radio Shack," Chloe said before she realized Steve had no idea what Radio Shack was, "I mean...yes, they're specifically made for her. S.H.I.E.L.D. made them for her when she was a kid."

Steve didn't like the implications that went with that revelation. "A kid?"

Seren could feel his burning gaze on her. She turned her head to the side and found the medical table, while scary as hell, was a lot easier to look at than Steve.

"How...why would a child need those things?" Steve demanded straight from Dr. Erin. "They look like handcuffs."

"Completely harmless, I assure you," Dr. Erin said in a calm manner, "I am one of the first doctors who assessed Agent Soul when she was first brought to S.H.I.E.L.D."

It wasn't getting any better to Steve. "As a child!?"

"It's complicated, Steve," Seren said quietly.

"You're right, everything around here is complicated but I do understand what S.H.I.E.L.D. is and if you're telling me that this kind of organization had you when you were a kid, then I know something is absolutely wrong here."

"Again," Dr. Erin cut in, "The restraints are perfectly safe for Agent Soul. We created them for her own well being."

"How do restraints help a child?" Steve demanded.

"Agent Soul gained volatile abilities that, if left unchecked, could hurt people around her as well as herself," Dr. Erin explained, her brow furrowing at Steve, "The restraints were created using her own DNA to negate her abilities when she suffered an episode that would lead to an uncontrollable disbursement of her powers. Additionally, Agent Soul has a phobia of medics. The restraints were also used on her as a child because she never let any doctor touch her. Things could get explosive…"

The only reason Steve didn't push for more of an explanation was because of Seren. He could see her trying to shrink away from the conversation — from them all. It hurt her to acknowledge her past and him picking at it wasn't going to help her in any way. "Well, if she has a fear of medics then perhaps this isn't the best environment for her right now."

"Could we have a moment, please?" Chloe asked softly. She knew Dr. Erin as well — the woman tended to her problems with the Hive Mind.

"Don't agitate her please," Dr. Erin warned, "Agent Soul needs to rest right now."

"Thanks, Dr. Erin," Seren said in a quiet mumble when she heard the doctor take off. When the door closed, Seren spoke again. "You shouldn't blame Dr. Erin for the restraints. I did ask for them."

"Why?" Chloe said, rushing to Seren's bedside. She tried to touch Seren but the Celessian scooted away from Chloe as much as she could without falling from the bed.

"Because I don't trust myself," Seren replied, swallowing hard, "L-Loki got into my head...I...I could see and I could hear but it was like my body was doing the things that I only imagined I was capable of doing. Everything that I said..."

"That wasn't you, Seren," Chloe would smile at Seren if she would just look up. "Loki brainwashed you. You did things because he commanded it."

Seren's body shook the more she thought about her actions. "No," she said, "The-the tesseract doesn't make you do things. It-it brings out...it brings out the things you never thought you would do. It's like a dark side and...everyone has a dark side. I became what the people who fear me always said I was: an alien. A cold hearted, dangerous, alien."

"No, absolutely not," Steve would stop her there and then before she said any more nonsense. He moved around Chloe, stopping just beside the bed. Like Chloe, he bent down beside Seren but kept his hands to himself, preferring to give Seren space until she gave a sign that she was ready to be touched. "You were doing what you were assigned. Chloe says you took on Loki to buy time for the others to get out."

"If I had been stronger, I could've stopped him from taking the Tesseract and killing the others."

"The 'what if' game doesn't help, believe me." He knew perfectly well the ropes of that game and even now, when he was aware of how damaging it was, he still played it sometimes. "You can only focus on what you have right now and that, thankfully, is your mind."

"Yeah," Chloe smiled, "You had our back, now let us help you."

"Can we take these things off now?" Steve pointed to the cuffs around Seren's wrists. Seren finally raised her head to meet his gaze. He smiled at her. Her eyes were rid of that eerie blue and were coated once again with her usual sparkly green shade. "Please?"

Seren seemed to wear disdain as she looked down at the cuffs around her wrists. "I don't think so," she swallowed hard, "What I said to you...I remember all of it."

Steve nodded silently. "And I told you that none of those words were yours. It was the Tesseract."

"No," Seren sounded like she almost choked on her one word, "It's like I told you. It's a darkness that makes you say all the stuff you shouldn't...but it's still my voice. I still said them. I...I told you so many things, Steve. How are you not mad at me right now?"

Steve looked at her incredulously, waiting for her to realize the answer to her own question. He supposed, in the end, that her pain blurred her vision of things. "Seren, that wasn't you," he reiterated, "I would never expect you to actually fight me. We're friends...I-I mean, I know I haven't been the best but—"

"Yes, you have," Seren said immediately, "Why on earth would you think the opposite?"

"Because I never actually got to know you," Steve said, sighing, "I bet Chloe knows everything about you."

"Well, I don't mean to brag..." Chloe said, swaying her head with a wide smirk on her face.

Steve playfully rolled his eyes at her. "My point," he started again, "is that I was so involved in my problems that I didn't realize that I had made such a good friend. I never got to know her."

"That's not true," Seren said quietly, biting on her bottom lip to keep her tears well inside, "You're mourning. You lost everything. I never expected you to move on so quickly."

"I know you didn't," Steve said, smiling softly at her, "But it would have helped me so much because maybe then I would stop being stuck in the past so much. I met you, and thanks to you I also met Chloe," he briefly glanced at the blonde, "and I will not let some weird alien cube mess you up. So I need you to stop feeling guilty for things that were out of your control."

"I can't, Steve, I just can't," Seren shook her head. She changed her position on the bed to sit cross-legged, dropping her cuffed wrists on her lap. She screwed her eyes shut for a second to push away the stinging of tears, "I keep thinking about it and if I-I think about it then it'll…" Her eyes opened and they shined with the tears she failed to put away. "It all comes back."

Steve and Chloe shared the same sentiment watching their friend break down. For as long as they each knew her, Seren had always been professional, kind and loyal. The sight of her like this was nothing short of heartbreak.

"Seren, it's better to face it rather than put it all away," Steve said softly. "That's what you tell me all the time."

"But it's different!" She looked at him like he was crazy. "You didn't hurt your own people — your team! I hurt my friends, I nearly took down the Helicarrier! I would've been responsible for the death of everybody on this ship! And do you know what I felt throughout that?" She waited for them to answer even though she knew it was an unfair thing to do. Of course they wouldn't know. "It was dark and it was persuasive." The admission of it left her hating herself all over again.

"What do you mean?" asked Chloe.

"I told you. The Tesseract shows you things, it-it shows you what you most want or what's best for you."

Steve suddenly remembered Seren's words during their forced fight.

"The Tesseract showed me something I needed," Seren walked a couple more steps towards Steve. He took back the same amount.

"I doubt whatever it showed you is something you needed," Steve said.

"Seren," Steve called, "What did it show you?"

Seren looked away from him. Her eyes slowly fell low to the ground. "You'll hate me for it."

"No, no we wouldn't—"

Seren nodded her head, quickly cutting him off. "Yes you would! You all would!"

Chloe stiffened when the gaze landed on her. "Me? I could never hate you, Seren. You saved me. In fact, you've saved a lot of people and I think it's unfair to forget about that right now. One bad thing does not mean everything else gets forgotten."

"Chloe's right," Steve nodded, straightening himself up on his feet. "You need to process everything, yes, but it shouldn't lead you to self-hatred. I'm not going to let that happen and I doubt Chloe will either."

Seren looked down at her lap. "All my life, I have never had the luxury of saying 'this is who I am' because I can't be who I am. I don't even know who I am, never have. I am Seren Soul, I am Agent Soul, and I am Stardust. I am human, I am a Celessian and yet I'm neither nor sometimes. The Tesseract took all of that away. It freed me from all that uncertainty and pain that comes with a lack of identity. It gave me peace." Seren swallowed hard and looked up at her friends. "It chose for me...by going back to the basic instincts. Alien."

"Newsflash, Captain, I am an alien. Everyone's always been so afraid of that detail!" Seren kicked herself up on her feet. "And now I've turned into the thing they most feared." She raised her hands, fingers spread apart as energy danced between them. "You met Seren — mousy little Seren," she feigned a pout for a second before an unusual hardness took over her face, "Seren, who walks with her head down; Seren, who watches her every word. Now you're dealing with Stardust. She—" she smirked, "—is all alien." Her hands balled into fists and the energy around them radiated. "No restrictions, no restraints — freedom." She charged for Steve, drawing back one arm to fire a series of star bolts.

Steve felt a strain in his heart when remembered that moment. In her darkest time, Seren craved freedom most of all. She was overworked, underappreciated, and what was worse in her eyes: unloved.

He couldn't take it. He'd apologize later. He leaned down and pulled Seren into a hug, ignoring her surprised gasp, and hugged her tightly. "For all your uncertainty about yourself, just know that because of who you are, I wake up every day and thank God that I woke up in a world where you could help me."

Seren felt the weight of his sincerity. It crashed on her along with everything else. She hugged him like her life depended on it — she was clinging to him. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry."

"It's okay," Steve promised her, holding her tightly in his arms. "You're going to be okay now, I promise."

Chloe watched Seren bury her head in the crook of Steve's neck, feeling nothing but a heartache at the sight. "He's right, Seren," Chloe decided to join the hug, "You're here with us now. And we are not going to let Loki get away with what happened to you and Clint."

"He already has," Seren said, drawing back from Steve, her face downcast, "I was supposed to protect the Tesseract and he got me with one move. How am I supposed to go out there and fight?"

"Well, taking off those cuffs would be step number one," Chloe said, glancing at Steve for his help.

"Absolutely," he nodded, "And then we can go out and discuss plans with the others."

"We need a leader right now," Chloe said, "We've been shaken and only you can set everything straight."

"I don't know about that, Chloe," Seren said, shaking her head.

"It only makes sense," Chloe insisted, "The Avengers Initiative started with you — you made it come to life — and now that it's finally time to act on its behalf, you are the rightful leader."

"A leader who side-stepped so easily," Seren shrugged.

"Everyone loses a battle at some point," Steve said earnestly, "It's how we deal with the next one that matters. I, for one, have no idea what this Initiative means but I can see that it's important to you so help me help you. Take those cuffs off and tell us what we need to do."

"Oh, Steve," Seren half smiled, "You're Captain America. You don't need me."

"Of course I need you," Steve said incredulously, "I'm not a man one show here, and definitely not in this world. I need to follow someone's lead and I can't think of any other person whom I could trust in than you."

"Same for me," Chloe nodded fervently, "You've been my mentor since you found me. I don't follow anyone but you."

Seren's eyes flickered between the two, unsure of who she was more fond of in that moment. She felt so incredibly lucky that she had them for friends because if not, she would let herself drown.

"So," Chloe said, bending down beside Seren's bed, "Can we please start by taking these cuffs off?"

Seren looked down at her wrists. "I...I guess..."

"Great," Chloe said, beaming, "And then afterwards, maybe you can talk to Stark. I'm on a frenemy basis with that guy but I think we really need him on our side." Steve reluctantly agreed.

"I suppose," Seren said, swallowing hard, "I do have to apologize to him for fighting him."

"And he beat your head — so you're even," Chloe promptly said, "Plus, I think there's some things you need to know about Stark. It's about the Initiative."

Seren looked at Chloe curiously. What else had she missed?

~ 0 ~

Tony had isolated himself in the very room where Coulson had died. There was no reason to feign friendship with anyone on the ship and even if he actually liked someone, that somebody had fallen off the ship a while ago. Seren and Steve found him staring at the huge gaping hole that used to have the glass cage where Loki once stood, though the pair suspected Tony wasn't truly looking at anything in particular. No matter what front Tony tried to put on, it was clear that Phil's death affected him just like it had to the others.

"Mr. Stark," Seren called lightly, not wanting to start off loudly or simply on the wrong foot — worse than what it already was, anyways.

Tony looked back, seeing all three, and turned around completely, eyes fixed on Seren. "So is this—" he made a pass at Seren, "—finally Agent Soul or the infamous Stardust I'll be speaking to?"

Steve wasn't the least bit amused with the response. "Stark—"

"It's fine," Seren said, shrugging her shoulders. "I deserve that. I did hurt you…"

"Let the record show that I did hurt you back," Tony raised his hands in front of him. "What should we call it? 50/50 damage?"

While Steve wasn't amused, Seren's lips twitched into a smile. "Something like that," she compromised. She pointed to the back of her head. "I do have a bump back there, you know."

"So 60/40?" Tony smirked. "I had to do a cognitive recalibration or else you'd still be trying to kill us."

Seren laughed lightly. "Okay, sure. 60/40." She heard Clint got a direct punch across the face by Natasha, so she may as well come out winning. She sighed at the mess of the room. "I'm so sorry for helping make this mess, for hurting guys. Maybe if Loki hadn't gotten me then Coulson might still be here."

"It's not on you, Seren," Steve rested a hand on her shoulder.

"I've known him for years and I...I don't know how different things are going to be without him."

"Was he married? Is there family we can…"

An unusual expression took Seren's face. "I...I don't know. There was a uh-cellist, I think. Oh my God. I've worked years with him and I don't even know." Her eyes widened with horror. "We never talked about him. He knew all about me but I...I never asked."

"Places like these can do that to you," Tony said, earning a hard glare from Steve. This wasn't the time for a remark like that!

Seren pursed her lips together. She now understood where Tony's resentment for S.H.I.E.L.D. came from. Chloe had explained it all. "S.H.I.E.L.D. may not always be transparent with its plans but it is typically for the well-being of others."

Seren formed her own glare on him. "We may not be perfect but we do our best."

Tony scoffed. "You call this—" he gestured to the gaping hole in the room, "—for everyone's well being? A man died in here because he thought he had to go up against some alien on his own!"

"He was doing his job—"

"He was out of his league," Tony's voice went up in volume. It seemed like he had put some thought into this already. "He should have waited! He should have—"

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony." Steve was sure that he would know that pretty well. Sometimes you could have the best of plans but one thing could change things and suddenly you had to make a decision on the spot...

"Right. How did that work for him?"

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?

"We are not soldiers!" Tony snapped, his entire body shaking at the mere thought of somebody thinking he was a soldier. "I'm not marching to Fury's fife."

"Neither are we," Steve argued quietly but Tony snorted and gestured directly at Seren.

"You watch your mouth, Stark," Seren warned, her tone thick with danger. She stepped towards him, finger pointing at him. "I know what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to you and you may have read files but you don't actually know me."

"Oh, no, I know you, Soul," Tony made the same step towards her. "You've been here for a long time, haven't you? And you don't even know what goes behind the curtains."

"If you mean my lack of knowledge about your almost recruitment into the Initiative, then no," Seren shrugged, "I had no idea they sought you out. Had I known, rest assured that things would have gone very differently. Natasha and I have different perspectives on things — we deal with people differently."

Tony scoffed. "I'm betting. But doesn't it bother you, Soul? Doesn't it bother you that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't even mention what they did behind your back?"

"There's no point in getting upset," Seren said, almost reciting it. Steve gave her a curious glance. "S.H.I.E.L.D. does what it needs to do. I'm not privy to every detail of every mission, but that's the job. That's how it goes!"

"But even with your own co-workers? Take Winters for example," Tony bobbed his head, "Do you realize that you've been working here for years and you didn't even know that your Agent Winters has little, almost nothing, to prove that she actually works for S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"That's impossible," Seren said flatly. "I've written reports about Chloe over her time here. In fact, I was the one who brought her to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place. I've seen her grow up from a teenager into a young woman."

"Yeah? Well there's nothing to show for it."

Confusion flashed across Seren's eyes. That couldn't be right. For all she knew, Tony's little hack trick had blown with one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s defense walls. He had the wrong information. "Stop that! I came in wanting to apologize for what happened to you—"

"I don't need it!" Tony snapped. "Of course I understand you were brainwashed — I'm not an idiot! I came wanting to find out the truth about this place." His eyes then flickered over to Steve. "I thought you of all people would be on board with that, especially with what we found out."

Seren's eyebrows knitted together. She glanced at Steve. "What's he talking about? What did you find out?"

"You haven't told her? Then allow me," Tony said, putting one hand over his chest. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has been preparing weapons to be powered by the Tesseract. Phase two of this lovely mission you've been working on!"

"What!?" Seren waited for Steve to say his part. She turned to him, motioning him to go on.

He didn't want to look at her very much. He knew how much this mission had affected her. "Seren, it's not your fault. You didn't even know…"

"So it's true," Seren nodded. "All this time they've been making weapons…"

"For that Initiative," Tony said bitterly. "All for that stupid initiative."

Seren rounded on him quickly. "Hey! I get that you're mad about their refusal to bring you in but don't you go bashing it when it's all I've trained for! You have no idea how long it's been for me…" She brought a hand up to rub her forehead. She could feel some jabs of pain; the only question was if they came from this conversation or the aftereffects of the brainwashing.

"Seren, maybe you should take another moment to rest," Steve suggested, watching her grow more agitated.

"No, no, no more resting. No more hiding behind curtains," she dropped her hand to her side. "You want to know some truths?" she looked at Tony who motioned for her to tell him everything she wanted. It's exactly what he wanted right now. "Fine," Seren said with a heavy sigh. "1995. This woman...fell from the sky. She had these amazing powers - she was so strong. She was fighting aliens and she met Fury. That was the first time S.H.I.E.L.D. met actual aliens, fought them too. The woman turned out to be a human but she had absorbed energy from the...the Tesseract."

The last bit naturally had pulled both Steve and Tony into the story, for who could be strong enough to absorb energy from the Tesseract and not die?

"There was a fight, a war that was threatening to take place on Earth and she got the bad guys...for the moment. She had to go end that fight somewhere in the galaxies but she also helped the aliens who needed a home because of that war. She went off to find them a home and stop the remaining warrior aliens. After that, Fury realized that Earth needed protectors. No one knew when this woman would be able to come back to Earth, so S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to find new protectors, heroes, who could take on malevolent creatures like the ones they met."

"The Avengers Initiative?" Steve presumed correctly. Seren barely looked at him but she nodded as an answer.

"Her name was Carol Danvers," Seren said, "I guess she was nicknamed 'the Avenger' during her piloting days so Fury named the Initiative after her. But the question remained, where would they find new heroes?"

"1995?" Tony was looking at Seren from head to toe, making the calculations in his head.

"I was 9," Seren pursed her lips together as they tried cracking a nostalgic smile for that time. "Agent Atria Dade volunteered herself, her daughter and her granddaughter. In the end, only her granddaughter was deemed as a viable candidate." Her hand came to rest over the choker around her neck, her fingers rubbing the silver star pendant. "According to my grandmother, I would hold a different power than she and my mother ever did." She pulled on the collar of her suit to reveal the star birthmark on the side of her neck. "This star birthmark is 1 of 2. The other one is at the end of my shoulder. The appearance of the second one is special. My powers are supposed to be stronger than my mother's and grandmother's. I'm, uh, rare, apparently. More than the fact that I'm a hybrid."

Steve couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was all nice at the end but were they supposed to just gloss over the beginning of the story? "You were 9 years old when S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited you." He was thoroughly disgusted that they would bring a child into the world of battles, that Seren's own grandmother would bring her into that type of world.

Even Tony had gone silent at that. For once, they were on the same page.

Seren seemed to expect that type of answer. It was similar to her mother's reaction. "I wanted to help, it was fine."

"You were 9!" Tony exclaimed.

"And I wanted to help! My grandmother didn't force me, she asked me if I wanted to become like that woman who helped so many people. How could I say no to that?"

"So you were manipulated. I can feel that," Tony nodded. It definitely made her more real than just a record of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s.

Seren sighed. "I know it's difficult to understand this but imagine it from my perspective, alright? Picture it for a moment. Me, a girl terrified with her insane alien biology learning that this woman - who was almost as much a human as I was - made herself into someone better. She became the best version of herself. You think I wasn't going to take that chance? I trained as hard as I could. I developed my powers, kept them at bay when I wasn't with S.H.I.E.L.D. and when I was finally 18, I started doing missions as Stardust. I have been training since I was nine to become a part of the Avengers Initiative and today, a mission under that proposal...I failed." She took in a deep breath, forcing any tears that wanted to make her look even worse to vanish. "S.H.I.E.L.D. needed me and I wasn't there. I let the very thing they wanted me to stop take me over. I turned on S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Yeah, you were so manipulated. Right, Captain?" Tony gestured to Steve who was still debating how to go about it with her.

Yes, from Steve's perspective, Seren had been thoroughly manipulated by both her grandmother and S.H.I.E.L.D. Everything was wrong with what they did to her, the story they gave her about that woman to motivate her? It was a good story for that woman to whom everything happened to, but at that point in time Seren was a child. Being recruited shouldn't have been the solution to her identity fears; that was something her own family should've helped her with, not S.H.I.E.L.D. His heart ached for that nine year old girl who so blindly accepted the dark world of fighting and missions because she felt it was the only way to make something of herself.

Seren saw the honest struggle in Steve's face. She couldn't blame him, she may have had the same thoughts every once in a while. She just hated to talk about it. "It's fine," she told him. "I just told you guys the story so you would understand that this Initiative is real." She met Tony's look. "You could be right, S.H.I.E.L.D. has its secrets but this is as real as it gets. We started off on the wrong foot but I'm here to turn the page. Technically speaking, under the Initiative I'm in charge and since I'm back…" She put on a big smile, waving her hands to gesture at herself.

Tony deadpanned her. "Because you're oh-so-rare?"

She rolled her eyes, letting her hands drop to her sides. "No, because I've worked for this. I've earned that position. I just need some people in my corner." She glanced at Steve hopefully. "I know what you found must have taken you back, I'm sorry. I really didn't know…"

"I know," he nodded. "With the way you behaved during that mission, there's no doubt about it in my head."

"A lot of people are going to get hurt if we don't stop Loki. You guys have every right to be weary of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury, I get it, but believe me when I say that you can trust me." She looked at Tony. "I know that I'm just a record file to you, but if that's true then you've seen the work I've done. You know what I stand for. With me, there's no curtains."

"Except for the fact you're also an alien…" Tony said with a small smirk, fully ignoring Steve's glare on him.

Seren inwardly sighed at him. "Can you trust me for a second here? Work with me?"

Tony leveled her glower with a bland expression. Finally, he had some answers to go by. Granted they weren't what he was expecting but they were honest answers and God knows that Fury would die before he gave one of those. Seren wasn't like Fury, which made her a whole lot better than S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury collectively. She, he could work with willingly. "Alright," he said finally and lightly smiled when she beamed. Definitely not like Fury. "What's your play, Twinkle Star?"

Seren raised an eyebrow at him. "Scuse me? The hell is 'Twinkle Star'?

"Stark," Steve warned again, though there was more of a resignation in his tone that Seren didn't miss. Had he been calling her that this whole time!?

"That is not my name!" She exclaimed. "It's like you're reducing my power to a nursery rhyme."

"Stars are enormously powerful," Tony corrected. "How you take it is a sign of your own internal issues."

Seren opened her mouth to snap when she came to the awful conclusion that he was right. Of course. She turned to Steve instead, knowing that he wouldn't cross her like Tony. "Maybe I wasn't entirely brainwashed when I punched him." Steve bobbed his head. That wouldn't be entirely wrong. Seren decided to forget Tony for a moment, maybe lower the chances of smacking him in the process, and focused on Steve's decision in regards to her idea. "Will you work with me?"

As of late, Steve was unsure of many things. Right now, his feelings towards S.H.I.E.L.D. were quite mixed but never about Seren. Funny how easily that worked. Seren was the only constant in his life and much more, she'd become an important friend to him. If she needed this to work, he would help as much as he could to make it possible.

When he gave a nod, he watched as her entire face lit up. "What do you need from us, ma'am?"

Seren's flushed with the purposely used name. Tony, however, rolled his eyes. Sure, Twinkle Star gets trashed on but the actual name that makes people sound old gets a big smile? The injustice.

"Okay," Seren began, bringing her hands together to start the thinking process. "Loki needs a power source for the Tesseract, but where would he go to enact it all? He has the entire world at his fingers, so where would he choose to go?"

That was the question of the hour.

"You didn't get the plan from his brainwashing?" Tony asked. They couldn't get lucky just a little bit?

Seren shook her head. "No, at least not me. But given his record, Loki will want to be seen. That has to narrow the places, right?"

Tony's gaze fell to the spot where Phil had died. He'd been staring at that spot more than anything else in the room. "He made it personal…"

"That's not the point," Steve said but this time Tony wasn't just making remarks.

"That is the point! That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To split us up," Seren shrugged. It was a logical tactic that any enemy would employ against them. "He took me, Clint and Selvig to increase his numbers and the chances of S.H.I.E.L.D. attacking one of their own and in the process he would gain three agents with different skillsets."

"Divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right. We caught his act in Stuttgart," Steve made a gesture between Steve and himself.

"Yeah. That's just previews, this is - this is opening night," Tony said, pacing a few steps, "And Loki, he's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered..." He came to a stop in both his words and thoughts. Seren recognized when someone had gotten a new idea and right now, Tony had been slapped with a big one. "Son of-a-bitch!" He quickly strode out of the room, pulling Seren and Steve with him.

"What? Where do you think he's going?" Seren exclaimed in their hasty walk, near sprint for her.

"To make a show!"

A/N:

And there we have it! In this world, Seren is technically the first Avenger. She's a huge fan and admirer of Captain Marvel and it'll always be a huge part of her reasons to keep working as Stardust. Too bad it got started in a not so nice way from S.H.I.E.L.D. :/. Now she's taking control of the team like she should have from the start!

P.S. As always, I have a tumblr account dedicated to my fanfic works! It's a place where anyone can comment about a story or even just talk to me! I often drop aesthetic work belonging to my stories too! Feel free to check it out, my URL is "saiilorstars"

For the Reviews:

Momochan77: Aw, thanks so much! I'm excited to keep showing their little progression! They're entirely too sweet!

Wonderwomanbatmanfan: I would love to write dark!Seren sometime again. I'm sure she might have a reason or two to be pissed at, say Thanos? I think Tony's just bitter about the whole Initiative and how it went down with him, Fury and Natasha (and honestly I would be too if someone came to my home to spy and then tell me 'sorry you don't make the cut') but hopefully he sees that Seren's not that kind of way.