Hearts Collide

"Why don't we have any Fruit Loops?" Alex whined as she went through the kitchen cabinets searching for the fruity cereal.

"Alex, I'm pretty sure you can eat something other than 'Fruit Fruit Loops' for breakfast," Tony pointed out as he took a bite out of his waffles.

"They're not for me to eat to eat for breakfast. They're for me to eat in class when I get bored," she sighed. "Wait— I found them!" she cheered as she took the box of Fruit Loops and shoved it in her bag.

"Oh yeah!, I forgot you start class today," Tony mumbled.

"Thanks, dad. I only reminded you a million times," Alex scoffed as she left the kitchen and made her way downstairs.

"Notebook: check. Pens: check. Fruit Loops: check," Alex mumbled to herself as she walked to the elevator not paying attention to her surroundings. She was interrupted from her thoughts when someone called out her name.

She looked up, saw Steve walking toward her, and smiled.

"Steve, good morning" she greeted as she gave him a quick kiss. "Kiss from my boy friend: check."

"What?" Steve asked confused.

"I'm just checking off everything that I need in my head."

"Need for what?"

"Everything I need before I go to class."

"Oh, yeah. You start classes today."

"Do guys ever listen?" Alex inquired while she raised an eyebrow. "I told you yesterday to meet me at that yogurt station on 6th Street today at two."

"I'm sorry. I guess I'm just so used to you being here and us going to places together," he admitted

"It's okay," she stated as she kissed him on the cheek before she stepped into the elevator. "Just be there at two o'clock. Alright?."

"I will," Steve promised as she waved good bye to her.
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"Where are you, Steve?" Alex sighed as she sat alone just outside the yogurt station; she had been waiting there for half an hour, but Steve had not arrived yet. She tried calling his phone again, but all she got was his voice mail.

"Hi, this is Steve," Steve's voiced echoed from the phone's speakers. "Sorry I can't come to the phone right now—". Alex hung up midsentence and shoved her phone in her bag.

"Why isn't he answering his phone?" she thought as she got up and began walking to the train. "What is he doing?"

When she arrived back at Stark Towers, she immediately went to the training room to see if he was there.

"Steve?" she called out, but got no response. "Maybe he's in the rec room," Alex thought as she began to exit the training room. She was stopped, however, when she heard footsteps coming up from behind her. She turned around and saw someone stepping out from the corner of the room.

"Alex," Fury's voice demanded, "I need to have a word with you."

"Okay, well stop doing that thing where you pop out of the shadows; it's creepy. Also, you're going to have to wait on that talk. I'm looking for Steve, so now is not a good time," she rambled as she once again began to leave the training room.

"Steve's not here, Alex," Fury stated which caused Alex to stop and face him.

"Okay, then where is he?" she inquired as she gave Fury a suspicious look.

"That's classified information, Miss. Stark."

"What do you mean classified?"

"Miss. Stark, Captain America's whereabouts is top secret S.H.I.E.L.D information that cannot be given to non- S.H.I.E.L.D work—"

"Okay, I get it," Alex interrupted slightly irritated. "I said I was't going to work for you so, now you're not going to tell me where Steve is. Fine. Whatever; just tell me when he's coming back," she demanded

"That is also classified information."

"I'm his girl friend!" Alex pointed out. "I have a right to know."

"I am well aware of your relationship with Steve," Fury began, "I've had Natasha keep an eye on you two and she has informed me that he seems to care a great deal about you."

"Y'know, I'm starting to really question Natasha's spying abilities because every time you tell me something that Natasha has told you, it is one of the most obvious things in the world! Of course Steve cares about me. We've been dating for two weeks. We we're really close friends before that. Why does any of this matter all of a sudden?!"

"It matters because it makes you a liability."

"I thought I was already a 'liability'," Alex scoffed as she air quoted the word liability. "That's why I agreed to do that training with Clint and Steve, so, in case anything happened, I can defend myself and my dad won't have to worry about me."

"Well, that's what I hoped for and what you agreed to, but now you're a threat to Steve and we can't have that."

"Jesus, Fury., Whatever you're trying say, say it already!" Alex spat out, annoyed at his ambiguity.

"Alex, look, I can't stop you from being Tony's daughter, but I can't have you be in a serious relationship with Steve unless you can prove to me that you won't be liability."

"I don't have to prove anything to you. If you don't know how a relationship works, let me tell you: they're between two people; not two people and the head of some secret organization. Okay?!" Alex shouted as she clenched her fist in anger.

"Alex, you don't understand—"

"I do understand!" she spat. "You're trying to use Steve to get me to work for you! Well, guess what, Fury? If you thought that I wasn't going to make you weapons before, I'm really not going to make anything for you now. I've been pretty co-operative with you considering the circumstances. Heck, I even made one of your agents a top quality weapon and maybe if I got to know you or Natasha or any of your other agents well, I would have liked them and made weapons for them willingly. But no, you have to go and antagonize me and try to create a system where you try to screw me over because my dad won't do your bidding so you go and think 'let me get his daughter to do it'. And this excuse that I'm a liability to Steve is bull because if you were really concerned about it then, you would have kept me from being friends with him— –or friends with Thor and Clint for that matter. So drop it! I'm not doing anything for you or S.H.I.E.L.D anymore, and that's final!"

With those words, she stormed out of the training room before Fury could stop her. The elevator ride to her room was quiet. She did not make a single sound and did not say a single word to Thor or Pepper whom she saw pass her as she walked. She simply went straight to her room, closed the door, and locked it.

Once inside though, she let out a loud huff and went straight to her drawers and began shuffling through her bottom drawer. A few seconds later, she pulled out a circuit board connected to a USB adapter and plugged into a panel in her wall that was connected to the building's data.

"Jarvis," Alex uttered as a few tears escaped her eye.

"Yes, Miss. Alex," Jarvis responded.

"I'm going to need you to activate sequence 0028," she requested as she typed in a code into Jarvis' system.

"Are you under attack, Alex?" Jarvis asked.

"Not necessarily," she answered as her voice cracked a bit. "I just need to make sure no one can see what I'm about to do

"Then I'm afraid I can't do that."

"You can now," she whispered as she pressed the 'enter' button, which caused all the lights in her room to turn off. The windows were blocked by solid medal gates and a second metal door pulled out from the sides of the walls, covering the wooden door Alex had locked earlier.

Alex had locked herself in her room. There was no light in her room except the blue glow that was being emitted from the door. And it was in this dark that Alex threw herself onto her bed and began to punch it.

"Steve," she cried out, her sound being muffled by her pillow. "Where are you? Why is Fury doing this?" she shouted as she continued to throw punches into the mattress below her. "He can't do this to me!" she yelled. After a few minutes she ceased punching her bed and turned to her side. She then tucked in her knees, got in the fetal position and began to cry in frustration.

"He can't do this to us," she whispered to herself.