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"You're a walking red flag," Pandora chides as she pushed Klaus into the house, "and you put in my whites in with your blues. Fuck you."

Beyond annoyed with his behavior this past month, Pandora slammed the door behind them. Despite their strong friendship and odd tendencies to stick together no matter the consequences, Pandora had a hard time getting used to living in a new house with him. New Orleans had been their home, but with Marcel, a shared child of theirs that they'd raised since he was around ten years old, taking over the Quarter they have to live in a home they weren't accustomed to. The plantation home's expensive furniture and ornate wine glasses can't cover up all of its faults, not always and certainly not forever.

"It isn't my fault that you put yours right next to mine!" He defended with his arms crossed. Klaus wouldn't be sharp or picky with her, but he couldn't help but let his tone slip for a second, turning him into his usual passive aggressive self. "It's not like you do your laundry regularly enough for me to even know that you're doing it. Why don't you compel yourself some clothes and leave it at that? Everything is free when you're immortal, Pandora, make better use of it."

She sent her childhood friend a warning glare before looking over to the side of the room. She'd made sure the house was clean, compact, and ready for any potential guests (not that they would have any of those anytime soon. The best they'd gotten was Elijah, who only came to remind his brother that he wouldn't be controlled). The white china Pandora got the week prior remained out of its shelving, sending her into a flurry. Which one of their maids had forgotten her warnings? Someone, by the gold embellished china on the mahogany table.

"Not everything has to be put away all the time," Klaus began to complain, "we got these things for a reason. Why must they be tucked away, unable to be truly appreciated."

A smirk appeared on Pandora's face. "Wouldn't you know about appreciation?" Klaus sighed, knowing what was to come next. "The next thing that you'll cherish will be my fist in your face, how about that? This house is managed by me, paid by the gold mother seems to whip up out of nowhere, and loved by both of us. Two me, one you," Pandora said to her friend as if they were children again. Klaus knew she was joking. Almost nothing she says is serious. How could she be when she grew up with someone like him?

So he laughed it off and put his coat down on its hook, admiring the lack of wrinkles and soft texture around the buttons. Pandora took this time to stride over to place the china back into its place.

These calm sensations of their usual routine flew over their heads, anxiety still persistent with the change in mentality. Before their tiny spat they'd been to the bar to have a few drinks. Not to be drunk, but enough alcohol to keep themselves from flying into panic whenever they heard someone mention Marcel, the boy who decided he would take their rightful thrones away from them and continue to use childish threats to gain power in their home. Pandora wished she could say that it didn't drain her, that hearing the man who she raised as if her own say such awful things about her best friend, his father, didn't hurt like a stab to the throat.

Pretending it didn't only gets so far, and even then it's only a few inches away from before the mask comes up.

Remembering the task they'd completed beforehand, Klaus asked Pandora from the living room (knowing her hearing was just as good as his), "Did you dump the body like I asked? The humans these days with their technology will figure out that it was us unless we're careful."

Typical paranoia, the redhead assumed, but she gave him a simple yes back, continuing the task at hand. This did little to satiate his fears of discovery. Mikael is dead, he had to remind himself again, he's dead and there's nothing that can bring him back. Necromancy is a sham, a way for humans to act like they're better than death itself. Yet the idea, the chance, only filled his chest with dread as he looked out the window.

He could ramble on in his thoughts for hours, allowing himself to get lost in his worries, constantly choosing the extreme over the positive outlook. Ever since he was a child he couldn't help but think that everyone was out for him, ready to betray him the second they got the chance. Why wouldn't they? What was he worth to them? This shade of paranoia had been implanted from an early age, only placated by the presence of the one person he could trust fully. Pandora Laureldottir, the girl born from the tree. How many times had she saved him from his father, from himself, at the cost of her well-being? He loved her like a sister, kept her close at all costs.

Pandora shrieked as a warm hand grasped at her wrist, pushing her into the wall. The sound set off Klaus, whose eyes immediately darted to the kitchen pantry. When the woman opened her eyes, previously closed upon the impact between her spine and the wooden wall, she saw a dark-skinned man. A taser was in his right hand while a badge was being held up by his left. A depressing sigh left through her lips as she went through all of the ways to kill him. Such thoughts were stopped short as her attacker drew out a laugh. Hair, she chastised herself internally, my stupid fucking glowing hair.

Previously hidden under a cloak of natural magic straightened locks of bright orange fell from the side of her face, enveloping her eyes in tricky blindness. Pushing her hair out of her face, she picked up a stool from her right, ready to fling the ancient thing at him if he didn't put away that taser sometime soon. However, she took a second to see the badge on his chest. SHIELD. Lord, how long had it been since she'd seen one of their agents? Pandora was sure that the last one was in 69', but clearly they're everywhere now.

"That thing won't work on me, you must know that," she managed to say, glaring daggers into his exposed black eye. He didn't seem at all phased, but he put the taser away into one of his pockets. Expensive, she noted, but not obviously so. This agent dressed in invisible luxury, just like the last one had. The immortal wondered if she'd passed by any during her time in New Orleans this month, if they'd been tracking her and — Niklaus.

The agent let out a sigh. "I do know that," he said calmly, only focused on the stool that Pandora held in her right hand. "You seem shocked that I found you."

"We weren't expecting company," she snarked, but her hair and now body held the same twinge of stress that caused her to lose control of her immortal form in the first place. Pandora wondered when Klaus would do right by her and get his ass inside the kitchen. What was taking him so long in the first place? Dawdling is for losers, he always says, but yet continues to do just that. Pandora snickered internally at the memories, although she didn't show it in her face or body.

"No, you aren't." All she could do is scowl at the human man. If he held any other badge on his chest she would have ripped his heart out and fed it to some neighborhood dogs. SHIELD agents... Pandora scoffed. What an excuse of a government funded industry of weaponry and destruction of other nations. They could hide behind their concrete doors, but she'd seen enough in the 50s and 60s to know what they're all about. A power trip, that is, and to show other nations just how powerful the United States is. Spying, hacking, and collecting 'difficult people'. What makes a person difficult? Perhaps she can ask when this idiot stops running his hand over their prized cookie jar from the early 20s.

"I suspect you can't be bribed," Pandora muttered under her breath. The man chuckled. She put down the barstool. "Because you know I would if you took that. Just a few million to get you out of my hair." He didn't avert his gaze, making Pandora highly uncomfortable. "If you know who and what I am you'll know that I can kill you with a flick of my wrist, control your mind with just a few words, and wish you were never born with two hours of your precious time. So, what makes you stay? I'm sure that you must be a master negotiator. You know, they sent one of your own in the 50s. Didn't work. Klaus gutted them and sent the remains to their family. Gruesome. Do you have family?"

"You killed agent Owen Karloff three hours ago and you're making small talk." It wasn't a question, she knew that. Finally getting her hair under control, she looked him directly in the eyes, waiting for his announcement of her punishment. You're under arrest. Yeah right. She's heard that too many times before, yet here she is, face to face with another agent looking for her head on a pike or her body in a jail cell. The man finally looked away, to his watch. "Either you're not worried about getting caught or you genuinely have no regard for human life," he remarked.

"1 — I didn't know he was an agent. 2 — It's both, if I'm being completely honest with you." The agent didn't seem impressed, but Pandora didn't care about his opinion on her. She'd been around for over a thousand years and only managed to gain the approval of village people and those she compelled to love and worship her. What should a human man such as himself mean to her in the long run? "I have no reason to fear you, agent —" she looked to his tag and sighed, "— Fury — as you've never given me any ground to believe that you've found a way to lock an immortal being such as myself. You're but a weak roach in a pile of filth that is this new age of humanity."

But a second later Klaus Mikaelson rushed into the kitchen with a knife in his right hand and a stake in his left. Pandora sighed and flipped her hair, waiting for the inevitable showdown. She could play this to her advantage. A SHIELD agent and an angry Hybrid Original, what a happy and comedic television episode. After what happened to that agent in 56', Pandora wondered what new things her best friend had come up with for these agents he despised.

"He's human, Klaus, and not worth our time." This did nothing to quell the fury growing in his eyes. Pandora grumbled softly as she waited for him to stand down, or at least stop with the threatening glare that pierced through his blue-green eyes. She didn't believe that he would actually kill him, not unless she beckoned him to. Information needed to be extracted from his humanity first, Klaus wouldn't pass up such an intriguing prospect. "Well, Nick Fury, if you wish to keep your life and your mind intact I would recommend leaving at once. Here in New Orleans we treat our nocturnal guests with care, but I can't say the same for day-walking intruders."

Not a sound came out of the agent as he walked towards her, examining her emerald green eyes. There was but a scratch of indifference in his tone as he finally broke the silence, "You don't make the rules anymore, Pandora Laureldottir. Your arrogance has failed you."

Failure. When Pandora thought of failure she was reminded of the time she attempted to paint the moonlight and accidentally grabbed red instead of a light blue, turning her night into a bloodied haze of purples and violets. Failure was a mere obstacle that could lead into greatness. How many times had she failed and came back from it, remained the most powerful being on the planet? Every. Single. Time. And yet this human man thinks he knows better than she? What a distasteful slap in the face. Were he not being tracked right now, she may have beheaded him right then and there, dumped the body elsewhere. His family, in her eyes, did not deserve the solace of his wrangled form.

"My arrogance is what's kept me alive all these centuries," the lie slid past her tongue like smooth pebbles against a stream, "and you should know that if you've been tracking me as I believe you have." A glimmer of spite rested on her brow as she looked him in the eyes once more, unafraid of his daunting presence. "I'm an immortal, born into life by nature herself. If what I've seen on the news is correct, you've been collecting magical beings for your little afternoon GSA club. Saving the world must be great, especially after such an embarrassing invasion. The rest of the galaxy must be laughing at us now."

The way he looked at her said it all. Nick Fury didn't know that she knew, and so Pandora gained the upper hand against him as she let out an all-knowing chuckle. "You aren't as private as you would like to think. I don't usually go digging for shit, but aliens? Can't blame me for being tempted. No actual hacking though, I do value government privacy. Sometimes. Under the right circumstances." Pandora knew he wasn't pleased as she smirked at her best friend. "If you're here to take us to jail, leave or pray to whatever afterlife your sect of humans believe in these days. There will be no negotiations on that front, I will add, and I have things to do today. I'm going to be a Queen again, after all."

Light once more drifted into the room, shining down and highlighting Pandora's forever youthful face. She prided herself on it, did whatever it took to make sure it remained beautiful. The ways she could charm with her natural elegance are endless, hence it being more of a tactical measure than pure narcissism. Fury was not like her, rough around the edges and mysterious as hell, something she did not see as a good thing. While he could frighten, she seduced and made her enemies wonder how she could possibly be a threat. However, this didn't work on Nick Fury. She could tell by his stiffness and unwillingness to take her bait. This, this she could respect. Without charm he had to have a solid defense, and with his eyepatch and hardened glaze he did just that.

"I don't plan to quarrel with your people," he digressed, his hand now in his pockets. "As the director of SHIELD I am required to evaluate if you are going to be a threat to humanity." Pandora and Klaus' scoffs could be heard from opposite ends of the room. Fury didn't seem offended, but boredom rained in the air. "This is no laughing matter. Countless disappearances and deaths of agents can be linked back to Mystic Falls and New Orleans, two places where your people reside. With deduction one would assume that every time you come and one of our own dies it's you who killed them. Am I wrong?"

Pandora chuckled as his poker face began to break. Did he truly think she would care about the deaths of these agents when she didn't realize they were agents in the first place? If they became an obstacle she would remove them from the equations. Mortal morality is not commonplace amongst mortals, although she does understand that many younger vampires adhere to the snatch, eat, erase rules of feeding, but Pandora doesn't drink human blood. All Pandora could do now is feign innocence and human-style morality that she inherently lacks.

"In our defense," Klaus said condescendingly, "anyone who gets in our way is killed. Agent, vampire, witch, god, doesn't matter in the end. Those who become a threat to us will be promptly eradicated and sent to the afterlife."

Counting the number of people who'd fallen victim to their way of life remains unknown to everyone, including them. Not even the Great Laurel had kept up her scoreboard for such things, by the thirteenth century the number growing too high in the times where witches would do whatever it took to get Mikael to go after them and the rest of the Originals. Nowadays killing was reserved for those who directly posed a threat, not anyone who dared make a single remark against them in regards to Mikael, who would always be their sworn enemy. Fury did not know that, however, or he would have brought it up. A simple slap in the face emotionally, of course, but manipulation seems to be his forte.

"You can be classified as many things. One of them being a mass murderer. We have cams of you slaughtering entire groups of people with ease. You never seem to use more than a stake of wood that you will sometimes run through people's hearts. Why you did this with agent Karloff remains unknown." Klaus laughed once more, putting the knife down on the table. "Do you find murder amusing, Mikaelson?"

"Only when it suits me, which it almost always does," a callous smirk remained on his lips as he continued, "The people I've killed during the past three weeks have fallen under three categories: witch, vampire, and werewolves. Unless that man you say we killed is one of those, we did not kill him. Or, better yet, he managed to hide his nature from you and your little secret spy government agency, making him even better than you could have ever imagined." Klaus rubbed salt into the wound, "Too bad he's dead and gone. Maybe one of the local witches will help you talk to his spirit for testimony."

Done with his taunts, Fury got his taser back out and pointed it directly at Klaus. "You'll be coming in with us, and if we see you fit you'll be placed with the rest of the Avengers in their tower to do good for humanity instead of tearing the city apart. Do I make myself clear?"

"Working with humans." Klaus had no trouble with that, but his affinity for stabbing when angry often led him to kill more than he did chat. The only exception to that has and will always be Pandora, but she didn't get on his nerves like humanity seems to. "Do I look like some sort of soldier to you? Fighting battles that humans started and now are depressed they have to win? Or lose, if you're on the weaker side. This mishegoss isn't for an Original Vampire and an Immortal, it's for all the world leaders, in a therapy session," he vented, anger now glazing over his darkened eyes. "Your group of vagabonds isn't for me. Ask any one of my brothers, I don't do well in groups."

"To be completely honest with you, Mister Original Vampire, you don't have a choice and neither do I." Fury slammed his hand down against the mahogany table at once before he sighed and continued, "We don't have people like you at SHIELD, people who have gifts and can use them to manipulate, steal, and take over entire cities for decades at a time. The department is giving you a chance to do better for this world and make sure that we don't get invaded again. The team is for those with powers to fight battles that humanity never could." He let out an exasperated breath. "If it were up to me you wouldn't be a part of the Avengers, but my higher ups said that we need two more people. It was either you two or war criminals who hate each other and would implode the team due to their wide variety of psychiatric issues."

Color drained from Pandora's face as he spoke. Joining the Avengers? The thought repeated in her head over and over again until she was sure that she must be dreaming, that today had been all mental, simply a fantastical way of her mind to trip her up. The concept was ridiculous. Who in their right mind would want her and Niklaus to be a part of a team of superheroes meant to fight evil on Earth? If anything she did the exact opposite, not that she gave a damn about her failure of a soul in this world.

Since the day Klaus was turned she knew that she could no longer be what the village people wanted; a sweet deity who did her best to bestow gifts and kindness wherever she went. Pandora turned to remorseless actions, not wanting to think about what could have been done or what she should be doing in a fight. She envied vampires who could turn it all off, move on, and kill without care. Pandora did care, but caring isn't enough these days to stop from murdering anyone who dared get in the way of what she wanted. This, she knows, is her innate selfishness that she would do anything to get rid of, cast aside so she could be a better Immortal being. But she can't, so it lingers on as a reminder that Mother Nature is cruel and merciless.

Is this doing the right thing? She thought to herself, Could I...?

Pandora danced along the lines of doing what was right and doing what's easy every time Klaus dragged her into a mess. More often than not she picked the latter, putting her into a deeper hole than before. Inside each hole she made, she placed a piece of her old self. A trade of sorts that made her wonder if she was even capable of doing the right thing anymore. Being loyal to Klaus and her own agenda shouldn't be what mattered most, but it kept her alive, helped life not be lonely and desolate like it had been for her mother for millions of years. She did it because she can't handle loneliness and isolation. Klaus did it for the same reasons, clinging onto the only friend he could keep with him at all times.

"Our track record for new people is bloody and dangerous," Pandora insisted, her defensive wall standing tall so it covered her heart, which couldn't take any more heartbreak or disappointment. "Tell your higher ups that we aren't what they want or need. Believe me, the war criminals are better than us. Easy to control, less of a threat. We extract hearts when angered, not shoot. 100% lethality from us."

"The council has decided that they are willing to take that chance with you two," Fury said with a sigh. Pandora looked to Klaus, who looked down at the floor. The Immortal wondered if this was it, her fate was to be a soldier for the United States Government, fighting whatever the galaxy threw at them. It all sounded funny to her. Because she knew other planets existed, that there are far off worlds with sentient species not unlike humanity on Earth, but she would rather ignore that and live in the present tense on her own home territory. Fury was only now finding out this year that aliens exist, or at least in this recent decade. What a shocker to a simple human being, knowing you aren't the biggest deal in the universe. It should be expected.

A change of scenery was in order.

---

The filtration system in the airplane was perhaps the best Pandora had ever seen, even if she doesn't need air to survive. Klaus insisted that nobody was to sit next to them, especially SHIELD agents. They weren't going to listen to his 'request' until he almost tore a man apart when he attempted to take the seat beside him, the one he'd so kindly reserved for Pandora. Whether or not this was a reasonable response didn't matter to Klaus, as he vented that he was to be listened to, or else.

Stark Tower was this so called 'Avenger's Tower', as it turned out, and the building was lucky enough to have not been destroyed during the recent alien invasion of New York. It stood proud, a sign of capitalism and Western ideologies and superiority, untouchable by man or foreign galactic beings. Klaus had made plenty of comments about it before the invasion, how the man who made it must have had an ego bigger than Jupiter, but Pandora found the scene quite calming amidst New York's rubble. The way it could stay up even when challenge reminded her of her childhood in the village, the memories that hadn't been tainted by Mikael and Esther blooming happiness in her chest.

When they made their way inside both Klaus and Pandora could tell that SHIELD distrusted them. With agents around every corner it was hard for either Immortal to be comfortable in the modern building. The woman gripped the edges of her sleeves as she saw multiple police officers eying her. She didn't think that her tight dress would be an issue, as before this she'd just come back from the local bar in the French Quarter. Now she wished that she could rip their eyes out, but Fury had been clear that he would taze her if she caused any humans harm in his presence.

"Who is this? Where have you been?" A man with a fancy suit questioned Fury. "Thor has been whining about taking Reindeer Games back to Asgard but we need your approval! Do you know how hard it is to get that guy to be quiet? Plus, he keeps asking if we have Pop-Tarts."

Thor. She knew that name. The God of Thunder, the myth, the legend, the man who could wield a hammer that called lightning from the sky. Not that she'd been able to meet the man in person, but she knew enough of him and his family to.... No. She didn't want to think of him. Her teacher would come back. But now he was gone, away from the planet. On Asgard doing whatever Asgardians do in their free time. Pandora shuddered and was thankful that Klaus was the only one to notice such an action from her. This topic could come up another time. She didn't want to be working with her old teacher's older brother. She could do sneaky billionaires and former assassins, but not Gods her Mother told her about during her childhood.

Klaus only let out a scoff as the man looked him up and down. Pandora didn't say anything, keeping to her phone, playing a new video game that had come out the week prior. Fury let out a deep sigh as his eyes remained on this new man. "Stark, I had to bring the new recruits while we had knowledge of where they were. These people are hard to find," Fury motioned to Pandora and Klaus, "and were hard to convince to join the team. I'll sign the release when I bring them up to meet the rest of the Avengers."

Stark, the man who owned Stark Tower. Pandora's eyes didn't meet his, she didn't care for billionaires who wore fancy machines on their body to look tougher than they actually are. However, she couldn't ignore him for long, as he raised his pointer finger at her. "I've seen her before. I don't know where the hell where, but I swear to God I've seen this lady before."

Pandora's face turned up as Klaus muttered something about humans and their awful manners. She took a second to take him in. Deep brown hair and charcoal eyes that fit with his slightly tanned skin. He was short for a man, but his suit made up for that fact. Pandora put her phone away and swept her hair behind her ears, her golden earrings now exposed. "You'll be seeing a lot more of me now, but only because this hellish government doesn't want to leave me and my best friend alone. If you mind, please keep your dirty fingers out of my face and let us move up the elevator so I can get this over with."

Her tone wasn't rude per se, but her words did jab at the man as she left him in the dust. She played the same game as him, using charm and attractiveness to get what she wanted from people. To someone like Stark, she would be useful, although he didn't know what sort of lethal powers she possessed yet. Pandora's smirk lingered in his mind far after she started going up the elevator with her friend and Fury. For once money and power didn't matter to someone, and that confused the hell out of Tony Stark.

There's a certain level of terror that comes with meeting new people, especially for Pandora, who'd known from an early age that she preferred to play with one person at a time. Once she saw the edge of the sky at the top of the skyscraper she found herself at a loss for words. Keeping close to Klaus, who was humming to himself as he watched the buttons glow, Pandora was shocked to find that a table of people were waiting on the other end of that elevator ride. She was sure she'd get more time to prepare herself, but the fates had other plans for her.

Fate brought her to this tower, Pandora knew, and it would throw her into a newly placed challenge like it did every century. How the fates must be having a fun time this century, with invasions and emerging convergence in the universe, which now felt centered on Earth's reaction to growth and expanding views on various subjects concerning intergalactic struggles. A match was lit under this planet and she would be damned if she didn't watch it go up in flames like she predicted it would.

Just as Pandora settled herself she felt a tug pulling at the pit of her chest. Klaus noticed the slight change in his best friend, although nobody else had, and gave her a questioning look. She averted her eyes as if to say I'm fine, don't worry about me. The silent conversation between them did nothing to stop her thoughts from racing. For once it wasn't coming from her heart, or the table of people she wasn't ready to get to know. It came from the shining glass door plated with reinforced steel and iron that kept wandering ears away from private chats.

Silence enveloped the room as the three took their first step inside. A man wearing a purple shirt and a woman with short red hair turned their heads first. Pandora thought they looked at her as if she were abnormal, out of place. She suspected they were just that, abominations of nature in the face of what's average, easy. Then she remembered why she was here and what she was meant to do. Each one of these people were abnormal and abominations just like herself, although perhaps they could hide it easier than she could. Glowing bodies and non-human features are the hardest to cover up when emotions become disrupted.

"Bringing new additions after the battle?" The redheaded woman asked. Fury simply nodded and pushed them a few inches forward.

"They usually aren't this shy," he snarked. "Is the prisoner with Thor, Romanoff?"

Met with a simple nod, Fury left the room to sign the right papers. That left Pandora and Klaus to awkwardly wait for any of the Avengers to make conversation. Normally it would be the Original who did that, but something kept him back this time, leaving him just as speechless as his ancient friend. The team didn't help them, remaining quiet as mice. That is, until the prisoner walked through the glass door in hellish chains.

"Did you miss me, daughter of nature?"

---