After ages I finally found the muse to update this story. I hope you still enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel.
Chapter 13: The breakthrough
The sudden artificial light hit Alexandra's eyes, maKing her groan in pain but also instantly gving her some relief. Slowly, she managed to calm down her breaths. When she looked around, she saw May, Hunter and Skye looking at her in utter concern.
"You had a panic attack," the Asian woman stated matter of factly, making the blonde woman snort.
"If you had not told me, I wouldn't have noticed."
"Does that happen to you often?"
The question was tricky. On one hand it was definitely out of concern for her, on the other hand it didn't take a genius to realize that May wanted to figure out whether Xandra could be a liability. She shook her head.
"No. Only triggered by dark, closed rooms." She frowned a bit. "I usually make sure not to get locked up."
May regarded her silently before nodding.
"Alright then, let's get you upstairs, you can work from there as well. Hunter, take a flashlight and fetch her gear, hopefully someone can repair whatever is wrong here quickly."
Surprisingly, it turned out to be rather difficult to find out a place where Alexandra could work.
She absolutely refused going back into a vault, the shock still too fresh in her memory. Her tone and the determination in her stormy eyes said that it was no use trying to make her go. It allowed no contradiction without serious consequences, a gamble that especially Coulson didn't want to play. No point in reducing the cryptographer's efficiency.
However, the place was also full of agents that would distrub her, so in the end they set her up in the lab.
Fitz didn't seem to be sure whether he was happy or concerned about this, especially as a new member gave him less space. Simmons definitely looked a bit surly. 'Well, to be honest, that wasn't really her problem, was it?'Alexandra thought She was here to do a fucking job and she would do it.
Only when Fitz looked at her weirdly she realized she must have been humming along to the music coming out of her headphones. Instead of being embarrassed, she simply grinned and shrugged her shoulders.
Suddenly,some lights went of on her computer screen and an annoying beeping started in her ears.
"Fuck, yes, I have it!" she screeched, making her companion nearly drop a screw driver.
"Really?" he asked, a smile blooming on his face.
She jumped down from the table she had been perching on.
"Yes I do. I do!" She skipped over to hug a flabberghasted Fitz before pulling away.
"Now I guess I have to tell Coulson. Quickly." Her eyes became concerned again. "I am afraid this is a quickly changing code, self-evolving. I am not sure how long my decryption will work."
Xandra quickly made her way to Coulson's office (only losing her way twice, what an improvement). She knocked.
"Enter, please!" he called out.
"Sir, I've got it. For now," she reported, "for some reason a lot of these messages circle around San Juan and whether to go there or not. Does that make any sense to you?"
The director nooded gravely.
"Unfortunatedly it does. Right, I will call everyone together in the meeting room in twenty, please send over the messages."
"Yes Sir," Xandra nodded eagerly.
Soon they all stood around the table, expectandly looking at Coulson.
"Now that I can access the messages, we have an advantage, a small one at least. Currently, Sam and Billy are trying to protect Raina from HYDRA.
We need two teams, one in Canada and one in San Juan. Skye, May and Hunter, you go to Vancouver to protect Raina. Agent Morse, Mack and Fitzsimmons, we fly to Puerto Rico."
Nobody voiced any objection.
"Sir, I should come, too," Alexandra suddenly remarked, "when the encryption changes and Skye is not in your team, you might need somebody else to redo it."
To everyone's surprise, May spoke out before Coulson could.
"Edvardson - this is not a holiday. It is not safe, we don't know what awaits the team there. Alien tech might be involved. HYDRA definitely is."
Alexandra smiled genuinely.
"I am very well aware of this Agent May. But I am also old enough to know the risks."
"We don't have any capacity to babysit her," Mack remarked defensively.
"Oh, I doubt she needs that," Skye murmured, absentmindly rubbing the shoulder that she had hit hard when the other woman had brought her down, "and she is right about the code."
"But we shouldn't bring outsiders like her into a mission like that. Not in an environment where we can't control what our consultants are up to."
"'She' is in the room and 'she' really doesn't like to be talked about like an object," Alexandra growled, making the other ones turn quiet, "I can take care of myself and I have personal motives just like you for wanting to bring down HYDRA."
Everyone stared at Coulson who was staring back at her, searching for answers in her face, trying to look past all the maskerades, the deceptions and the shows she put on so often. She let him.
"I know," he said quietly, "you come with us. What you need to know: We are trying to find an alien city that HYDRA is trying to find too, to unlock something with a key, that is, with an obelisk. Well, but just to make sure I still would like to have May to check on your training."
Both women nodded, Skye, Fitz, Hunter and Tripp looked reasonably excited while the rest seemed rather unimpressed.
"Meet me downstairs in 10," May just commanded.
When they met in the gym, May was clad in all black training gear while Alexandra's was a dark grey leggins and silvery short-sleeved shirt. She had braided her hair and taken off her glasses and jewlery, somehow still oozing out "good breeding".
"Let's start, I will attack and you try to defend yourself," May motioned for her to come closer, noticing that despite her casual attitude, the younger woman's muscles were already tense, like an animal ready to pounce. Because of the colour of her clothing and her fair teint, she reminded May of a snow leopard. Without a warning, the Asian charged, trying to kick the legs under the other woman's body but was surpised when she was outsmarted and instead found herself hit against the ribs. The next attack came from Alexandra, it was a bit too obvious and therefore easy to block, however May was surprised of the speed she seemed to have. It was almost impossible to get to her legs and feet and she was never standing still, almost dancing out of the way. Her stamina and concentration were impressive, May was absolutely sure that neither taunts nor a 4k run would bring her composure to crack. On the other hand the dark-haired woman quickly realized that Alexandra lacked strength in her arms, for as her technique was flawless she needed her whole body weight to put real force behind her punches. Probably a lack of training, nothing one couldn't fix.
Her style was interesting, a mixture, as if she had been trained by different people. The foot movement looked vastly influenced by fencing, the fighting as such seemed very "SHIELD", or at least like the mixture between martial arts that a lot of SHIELD agents did. Now that she thought about it, maybe someone had trained her when she had worked for the agency before. At one point, when they were both rolling over the floor, the Swedish definitely did a move typical for Romanoff. The thought startled May for a moment. Either she had become aquainted to her while working for Stark or that woman had been more important to SHIELD than she had let on.
Finally, May raised her hand.
"Enough. Train your shoulder muscles, the punches are too weak. And guard you left side more. But - you have a chance to survive, kid."
Where the almost-endearment came from, May didn't want to know and Xandra didn't comment on it, she nodded dutifully before making her way to her quaters to have a shower. When she was just drying her hair, somebody knocked. Skye stood in front of her door, so the other one mentioned fo her to come in.
"What is it Skye?"
Skye was chewing on her lip, apparently unsure how to start.
"I am glad you are going with them. I have a bad feeling about this, you know. My father is involved and ... he is really not a good man, you know. I mean like ... he is a murderer."
She shook her head.
"I have never met him, but just knowing that this is my father is a monster..."
Without any further words, Xandra embraced her.
"I am sorry Skye, so sorry."
"No, I am sorry, I didn't want to bother you. But it is just hard when no one understands. And the one I once thought would understand turned out to be a HYDRA agent."
Skye laughed bitterly.
"Don't apologize." Alexandra's voice was firm, "I might not know about murderers, but I know enough about monsters myself."
Thank you for reading, stay safe!