warnings!: brief mention of depression, brief & vague description of suicidal thoughts. please proceed with caution! your health is the number one priority.

...

Kelda, obviously, did not wake up on time the next day.

It wasn't a surprise to Hill, who'd caught her staying up late to read a book. 

Fury however, was unironically furious. 

"She's supposed to start her training today, ain't she?" he'd questioned Hill when they had been waiting for her in the breakfast lounge for 30 minutes.

"Uh, sir?" a guard had stepped up, mustering all the courage, "We saw her outside her dorm's window, last night."

Well, this was just icing on the cake, wasn't it?

"Martinez! Go check up on the new recruit." Fury resisted the urge to punch the guard. If she got out, she could wreck havoc across all of America. "You," he pointed at the guard, "with me." 

🖇️

Kelda never knew that she snored while sleeping. 

That was, until Sarah came barging into her room at 7 in the morning ( who even wakes up that early? ) and started lecturing her like a grandmum. 

And she didn't even have her coffee yet, poor thing. 

Oh, coffee! A piece of heaven she found on Midgard was in coffee, the best drink according to her, no joke. 

Unless it was pure black and without sugar. That was a drink for devils — no offence, of course. 

"Wha' time i'it?" she'd mumbled incoherently, and Sarah had sighed and retreated her hand from where it sat just above her holster, asking the other agents to stay out — Kelda would definitely not want anyone to see her so . . . vulnerable. 

"7. You're late." 

"Who in hell's name is late at seven in the morning?" Kelda moaned, burying her head under the covers, hugging her pillow tighter. "If anything, you're early." 

"Fury was gonna start your training today, don't you know?" Sarah grunted as she pulled the comforter off of Kelda's body, in response to which the younger girl whined. "I thought Hill would've told you about it." 

"She did." 

"And you're still laying in bed? Why aren't you ready for training?"

"I never said I was fine with it." Kelda rolled her eyes when her accent deepened because of sleep still tracing her senses. She rolled over onto her back and pulled the covers down just the slightest, "Do you really think you mortals, creatures who didn't even know the existence of such magic until nearly two months ago, can train me, a girl who was powerful enough to intimidate a God?" 

"You must be very unaware about our past if you don't know about our own Close Encounters with the Third Kind." Sarah joked, but then she remembered that Kelda most probably didn't know about the movie. Carol Danvers's file was still very much interesting to Martinez, who had been one of the few who'd been briefed about the lady, being one of the older members of Fury's gang. "C'mon, kid, we've had some. . .meetings." 

"I'm about more or less a  thousand years old, perhaps older." Kelda rolled her eyes again, "I'm sure I'm not a 'kid'." 

Sarah held in a laugh. Kelda was trying to be assertive, and failed miserably. 

"Alright, Your Highness, please grace us with your presence in training room number six within the next ten minutes." 

🖇️

"Agent 001, explain your behaviour." 

Fury had named her Agent 001, since Kelda hadn't exactly reacted. . .compassionately at the use of her actual last name. 

And it was Fury questioning her, since he'd watched the cams and seen her dangle her feet out the window at night, times when the agents are ordered to be asleep, because well, we can't have sleep deprived zombies saving the world, can we? 

Pun unintended, Fury was furious. First this, then she refuses to co-operate. 

Oh yeah, as soon as she came up to the room where she was supposed to train, she scared the scientist assigned to keep watch of her by using some colourful choice of vocabulary. 

He scurried away, his hands shielding parts that would be inappropriate for a lady to name in public. 

Kelda stayed silent, hands crossed behind her back, eyes towards the linoleum, mind somewhere over the rainbow. 

"Would you speak? Grace us with your lovely voice, Your Highness." 

She immediately knew her conversation with Sarah was heard by Fury and God knows how many other agents. She looked up at her friend, her gaze hardening as she remembered she'd almost let herself be vulnerable in front of, possibly, a room full of strangers. 

"I needed some. . .fresh air." 

"Is that why we saw you stand up on the ledge for a second?" 

"I. . ." well, she couldn't tell him that she thought of running away. He'd increase protection around her cabin. And she couldn't tell him she briefly contemplated doing what he assumed she was going to do.

It would've been dumb, she'd deduced, for she wasn't a teeny human. She was a Goddess. Unlike Thor, she was a Goddess, an actual Goddess. 

"It was a brief moment of weakness." she gulped down every trace of emotions when her thoughts wandered off to Asgard again. To family. "It will not happen again, you can be assured."

"Agent 001 will have to attend psychological evaluation for the rest of the week." 

"That would mean I'd be on lockdown until then." Kelda could already feel her heartbeat rising. Being locked up in a room with complete restriction, to only be allowed to go outside for limited hours under supervision. . .that reminded her of a terrible time back on Asgard. 

She only got a nod in return. The Agency ( which was what she'd resorted to calling it after she realised the entire name would be too long to word ) had a policy of keeping watch on potentially depressed people, not because they thought that they were crazy, like most agents always assumed the case to be, but because they wanted to prevent anything bad from happening to the agents by their own actions. 

"F-Fury, I'm sorry," she would curse at herself later for stuttering and letting her voice go tight. "It won't happen again. It won't ever happen again." 

Fury got up to walk out. 

"Fury! I promise, I'd stay confined to my room and-and I won't even lean out the window, and I'd even come to training sessions way before time!" her breathing was labored, and for a moment Sarah began to move towards her to calm her down. Fury gestured not to. At least he knew something that scared her. He was, in no way, a sadist. He just wanted Kelda to be open with the Agency, with someone, so that they could know how to co-operate with one another. "Fury please, don't put me under a lockdown." 

She was close to falling to her knees, tears almost blurring her vision, but she kept them at bay. Her hands shook but they were hidden in the pockets of her jacket, her knees wobbly but she stood stable with the support of the table. This wasn't her being weak. Was it? 

"Agent 001, come with me." 

She sniffled back her emotions, that blank stoic face back again. She wouldn't lie - being referred to as Agent 001 instead of Kelda or Kel hurt, especially from Fury since he was her first . . . companion in the Agency. But she knew she'd crossed the line, especially when she toyed with her safety and her life. 

"Only Agent 001." Fury didn't even turn around to know that Sarah was about to follow. Sarah expected a nod of reassurance, any sign of Kelda being back to Kel to show up when Fury's back was turned, but her head hung low and her hands were hidden by the confines of the pockets. 

🖇️

"Ever since Agents Coulson and Martinez brought you in from the hospital, all you've done is wreck havoc in this place. And yet we keep you, d'you know why?"

She shook her head, the only sign of her being alive for her stare was dead as she looked at the pendulum on the wall clock. 

"It's a big bad world out there, Agent, a world even someone as powerful as you can't handle." Fury didn't look at her either. It was mutually decided that they wouldn't look at one another when they were mad at the other. 

"There's some bad people out there, people who'd use you and exploit you, and they ain't gonna be as nice with your delicate little mind as we are." 

She scoffed under her breath, "This is nice?" but Fury heard her anyway. He slammed a hand on the table, "Damn right, this is nice. Nicer than Russia, at least. But you don't wanna know about that, do you? You think you're so above everyone, that just because you've got those little itty-bitty tricks up your sleeve, we should kiss the ground you walk on.

"Let me make something clear, Agent. Everyone here is equal, no matter what work they do, or where they come from, or what abilities they possess." he continued ranting off. "There's been agents earlier just like you, who have co-operated with us and have been successful in learning to control their abilities. You'll learn to do the same, once you tell us what it is that's bothering you." 

Kelda no longer looked at the pendulum. Fury's anger had snapped her out of the haze her memories put her in, and his words made her ashamed of the person she'd been the past few months. 

"You don't have to talk to me, or to Coulson, to Hill, to Martinez. There's just gotta be someone you can trust, someone you can talk to." 

"And then they can talk about it to you?" 

"Yes. Because here, that's how it works. You might not like it, and they won't tell me everything because I don't care about everything, just the overview of what you need. So we can work with you." 

"Without the fear of me destroying this city." 

For the first time in many years, Fury hesitated. "Yes, without the fear of you ravaging our city. Then our country." 

"And eventually the world." Kelda gazed at the window in his office. It was a big one, something she liked. "You're afraid of me, that's why you keep me sheltered here, isn't it? It's not me who should be afraid of the world, it's quite the opposite, actually." 

Fury pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's both, Kelda. You'll learn soon enough. If you don't wanna train now, - and no, you won't be training alone -, you're gonna be attending classes with Felicity Coulson." 

"Coulson's got relatives here?" 

"It's his little sister." Fury usually didn't disclose much about his agents to other agents, but if it would make her shut up. "She teaches most of the new agents, usually rescues and imports." 

"What am I going to be taking classes for?" 

"You gotta know about the world you live in, now. This is your new home, Agent." 

🖇️

Piper Coulson was like a little carbon copy of her brother. 

The same friendly aura, the kind eyes, cheery tone. She was as inviting as a cozy, warm fireplace on a gloomy wintery night. 

"You're the Kelda everyone's talkin' about!" she'd grinned when she was finally introduced to the said the Kelda, the kind of smile on her face you'd only master after being comfortable around someone. "You can call me whatever you want, Pip's taken the majority vote now, though. Let me take ya to the library." 

Kelda was quiet as a mouse. It was her nature to say things she did not mean, then ponder over those moments as a means to spend her sleepless nights. Piper, or Pip, as she preferred, was a welcoming soul, a person she didn't want to scare away with her blunt phrases. 

But something told her that Pip wasn't one to easily be scared. 

"Now, since you're one of the 'E.T.s', as we call 'em, you're gonna have to give a little test of sorts, so I know exactly what it is that you know and what all I need to teach ya." Piper slid in a chair at a large table meant for about ten people, prompting Kelda to take the seat in front of her. "Is that alright?" 

Kelda gave a shrug and a nod. Ever since she was a toddler, she had been studying and learning about Midgard.

She couldn't help but feel smug when she saw Piper's surprise, albeit the Coulson tried to hide it. Midgard had been the very core of her studies ever since childhood, a dead giveaway that Odin had always wanted her away from Asgard. She'd been a fool to think that this suggestion only came up once that night occurred. 

It was an excuse to send her away, something she'd come to realise later. 

Piper didn't understand why Fury was so hellbent on having Kelda take lessons with her. A conversation later told her that Kelda did not require knowledge about the world - she probably had more than the agents themselves. She needed to know what it was like talking to a human being without counting to ten to control their temper. 

Now, Sara was a good friend, but as an agent, she was busy. And she lost her temper sometimes. 

Piper, on the other hand, had no work other than the occasional voluntary assistance in some paperwork or research, when most of the agents were down. Being one of the sweetest but also one of the most patient agents on the force, and luckily around the same age as Kelda, she could be the friend, the catalyst Kelda needed. 

So she put all her energy in being the best friend Kelda, the lost princess, could ever wish for.