"Hello?", a very groggy sounding Eleanor answered her phone, cursing the ringtone for sounding like it was drilling into her skull.

"Oh thank God, you're awake, you had me worried". Ah, it was Natasha, she shouldn't be surprised really.

"Yeah, I'm awake, have been for about half an hour".

Natasha nodded her head and bit her lip due to nerves, even though the woman on the other end of the line couldn't see this. "I haven't got long, I have to go and get Banner, they seem to be gathering everyone for this damn thing".

Eleanor chuckled at her frustrations but soon stopped when it felt like someone was rattling her brain, "Yeah well, it's very much needed, the person in control of all of this... I've never seen anything like it, they got Barton to take a shot at me without even saying anything". She frowned at the memory, she hadn't really had time to dwell on it until now, after everything that had happened.

"Wait, Barton took a shot at you?".

"Mhm, multiple actually, he's got shit aim", Eleanor smirked, deflecting the hurt from what had gone down with comedy.

"I'm going to hit him so hard when I next see him".

"Oh, that sounds like fun, can I get in on that?".

The pair laughed before Nat heard the familiar sound of a jet landing nearby, ready to take her to Kolkata, so she instinctively started walking towards it, her feet carrying her whilst her mind focused on Eleanor. "Listen детка, I have to go but I'll see you really soon, okay?".

"Okay, I'm on desk duty for the next 24 hours, so I'll just be sat here", Eleanor shrugged as she sat up, trying to find a new comfortable position. Hospital beds were not it.

"They're still making you work?", Natasha asked trying to sound calm, but annoyance could clearly be heard in her tone, making Eleanor smirk a bit as she shared that feeling.

"In a few hours, yes. 'We are at war now' Fury told us, very dramatically actually".

Nat simply sighed, once again unhappy with these developments, but they did need all hands on deck by the sounds of it so she bit back mouthing off on the organisation she worked for and instead got back to trying to be comforting towards her girlfriend before she had to go. "Well take it easy okay, I love you".

"I love you too". And with that Nat ended the call, hurrying onto the jet to greet the other Agents on board.

"You'll be sent in alone, make sure he thinks that, who knows what will happen if he feels threatened", an Agent started explaining. She just nodded along, she knew what would have to be done.

"Oh, I think him feeling threatened is very much on the cards with or without him thinking I'm alone", she retorted whilst getting into some more appropriate attire.

Nat spent her time on the jet pacing mostly. The other Agents steered well clear of her, she could already be pretty scary and so they left her to it whilst she was in this mood. It didn't take long for them to arrive, they landed in a clearing and walked the distance to a small house on the outskirts of the city that seemed to be vacant for the time being. They came across a young girl nearby and paid her to use whatever acting skills that she may have, and go to the address that SHIELD had tracked Banner's current location to, and ultimately get him to follow her back thinking that there was a medical emergency.

Whilst waiting, Nat placed a few hidden weapons around the place, just in case. Better safe than sorry.

The plan worked, the girl succeeded in bringing Banner to the house, and once the girl had crawled out of the window, Nat made herself known to the Doctor. Nat was able to explain why she was here and why they needed his help, it went as smooth as she had expected. She did have to wake out one of her weapons when Banner decided to be a little testy, leading her to tell the Agents outside to stand down. That fact didn't stay hidden for long.

Ultimately she had managed to get Banner to agree to come with them back to the helicarrier, even though he had found out about the huge team of armed Agents outside the house.

---

Eleanor had been placed on a team who were going through the potential sightings of the gang who stole the Tesseract. Anything that popped up on CCTV as a remote match was dissected meticulously, but everything was coming up as a false alarm, frustratingly. The number of times she almost threw her laptop across the room was unreal, but she managed to keep her cool, which saved the embarrassment of any nurses seeing her having a temper tantrum.

She had been up all night going through everything, she wanted to be doing more than just going through all of the low chance sightings, but the nurses around were very strict, and she would rather not be glared at by them until she went back into her bed. A nurse's glare was much like that terrifying look a mother gives her child who is acting up.

Just as another false sighting popped up, and she had lifted her laptop up in readiness to launch it, Fury popped his head around the side of the door, causing both of them to narrow their eyes at each other Eleanor slowly lowered the laptop back down onto her lap.

He chose to ignore what he almost witnessed and so carried on with what he was planning, "You're friendly, correct?", he started.

What? Eleanor thought. "Uhh... I hope so?".

"Good, I need you to come and visit Steve Rogers with me, he can be a bit stubborn and he might respond better if you're there as well".

Eleanor tilted her head at him, was he not seeing her sitting in a hospital bed right now? "Fran will beat me with a shoe if I attempt to leave within the next 10 hours".

"Symptoms?", he demanded.

"A headache", Eleanor shrugged back at him, she really wasn't in too much pain anymore somehow, just tired and felt like her head was being squeezed with a tight elastic band.

"Okay, good. Get into some comfier clothes and meet me by the hangar, you and I are gonna take a little trip".

He didn't give her time to reply before walking away, presumably to one of the jets. Eleanor sighed before standing and slipping on her shoes, she really did want to get into different clothes, she was currently supporting some white leggings and a very oversized white shirt. It wasn't really a look she wanted to keep anymore, looking like she was about to do meditative yoga or something.

Just as she was walking to the door, Fran, the scariest nurse, walked in to check on her vitals. Here it was, the glare that made people shrink to the size of a bug. "What are you doing up?", she said as she walked into the room, forcing Eleanor to move backwards.

"Pardon?", Eleanor faked confusion, trying to throw Fran off so that she could speed out of the room.

"Get back in-", before Fran could finish she was cut off by Eleanor darting around the side of her and running out of the room.

"Sorry, I don't speak English!", she shouted as she bolted out of the room, and to her locker on the helicarrier, where some spare clothes were lying around.

Once in a simple outfit choice, jeans, a black t-shirt, and a zip-up hoodie, she briskly walked to the hangar, where she was met by Coulson, who walked her not the correct jet, getting in himself.

Fury smirked at her when she made her way over to him, "I see you didn't succumb to 'death by shoe beating'".

"It was a close one", she replied slightly breathless due to running around the helicarrier like a madman.

---

The jet landed in an open field area, where a car was waiting to take them to the gym that Steve Rogers was currently in. Not that they were stalking their new recruits or anything.

It wasn't a long drive, and so the time was simply spent with Fury briefing her on what was going to happen. If he showed resistance, get all smiley and hope that it will work better if he shrugs off Fury's more direct approach. She could do that, smiling was easy. Sometimes. Fury handed her the mission briefing file as they got out of the car.

Walking into the gym, they saw Rogers in the zone, beating the crap out of a punching bag. He very clearly needed a minute, so they hung back by the door, giving him some space. Eleanor was very impressed and a tiny bit scared when the punching bag flew off of the chain and onto the floor, with a rip in it.

Once he had hooked another bag up and started punching, Fury decided that the two were going to make their grand entrance. "Trouble sleeping?".

Rogers briefly stopped before going back to the bag, "I slept for 70 years, Sir. I think I've had my fill".

The two began walking forward to him, "Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world". He then stopped punching altogether, unwrapping his hands as he headed to his gym bag. Eleanor felt slightly bad for interrupting his gym time.

"When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won, they didn't say what we lost". Eleanor tilted her head briefly, that did tend to happen. In missions, she was well aware that sometimes things were sacrificed to get a win, and people rarely talk about these sacrifices. This tended to eat her up, not that she showed anyone.

"We've made some mistakes along the way, some very recently", Fury stated as the two now stood next to the Captain.

Steve looked up and glanced between the two of them, "Are you here for a mission?", he raised his eyebrows, clearly not all that happy by their presence.

"We are", Fury coldly said. Eleanor wanted to very visibly roll her eyes but they needed to appear as a united front, so decided against it.

"Trying to get me back in the world?", he replied as he continued unwrapping his hands, he really didn't sound convinced, it was time for Little Miss Sunshine to jump in.

"As lovely as that might be Captain Rogers, we're trying to save it", she smiled whilst handing over the file with information on the Tesseract in its contents. Steve frowned slightly but took it, flicking through the pages.

"HYDRA's secret weapon", he breathed out, almost not believing what he was seeing. Eleanor pursed her lips, knowing it must be hard knowing that even after 70 years this little glowy cube was still causing trouble, especially considering the man died trying to stop it.

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think. The Tesseract could be the key to unlocking unlimited, sustainable energy, that's something the world sorely needs", Fury put himself back into the conversation.

"Who took it from you?", Steve asked as he handed the file back to Eleanor.

"Loki, their capabilities are far beyond our pay grade", Eleanor responded with an awkward chuckle, Fury nodded along, whilst the other looked a bit confused at what he was being told, "Uh, if you're in there's a lot that we need to catch you up on, the world had gotten... strange, to say the least".

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me".

"Ten bucks says you're wrong, there's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment, are you in?", Fury jumped in again.

Rogers looked at Fury with apprehension, but then looked towards Eleanor who shot him a friendly smile, "Fine. I'm in".

"Great, Hughes will go with you back to your place so that she can escort you to our jet once you've packed a bag and read through the packet", Fury said, although it was more like an order. He walked off leaving no room for discussion.

Steve scoffed slightly before picking up his bag, along with hauling a punching bag over his shoulder, and started walking out of the gym, Eleanor following closely behind.

"Sorry about him, he can be intense at the best of times, you'll get used to it".

He turned around and gave a small smile, "That's alright...", he trailed off to get her name.

"Oh, Eleanor, but you can call me El".

"Well, it's uh, good to meet you".

They arrived outside of the gym and started the short walk back to the apartment. "So, capabilities above your pay grade? What does that mean?".

Eleanor pursed her lips, trying to think of how to respond without making it seem like Steve was joining in on an impossible assignment. "Loki is... well their capabilities are hard to understand, but what we know is that they can make people do things".

"Do things?".

"Yeah, like getting people who are usually loyal to throw out their morals and hijack a car to help steal the Tesseract, without any verbal communications".

Steve's eyes widened, "When were people able to start doing that?".

"It's new to us too", Eleanor smiled weakly at him, he nodded in response and the rest of their journey was in silence.

Once inside the apartment, Steve went to go shower and pack a bag, leaving Eleanor with a glass of water and some snacks as she hadn't eaten in a while.

"Thanks for the food", she smiled when she saw him returning from his bedroom and into the living room.

"No problem, gotta keep your energy up right?". He seemed in much higher spirits since the gym, probably because he had had time to wrap his head around it a bit more.

He picked up the debriefing packet and placed himself down on the sofa, reading through it within a few minutes, "So, there's going to be a team of us with different capabilities who are going to be working on detaining Loki?".

"Correct", Eleanor replied before seating herself next to him on the sofa.

"And you're going to be one of these people?", he chuckled slightly.

"Hey! I'm good at what I do", she scolded him, but she thought it was kinda funny even though she was being underestimated. She could see why he didn't think she fit in with people with super-soldier serum and an iron suit.

"I'm joking!".

Eleanor shook her head, smiling slightly, "If you're ready Captain, I think it's time to head out". He nodded and grabbed his bag.

"Lead the way".

---

After questioning where Fury was when back on the jet, Coulson had informed her that another jet was ordered to take him back. She wasn't even phased by his unannounced departure, the man was an enigma and she was used to it by now. She took a seat on the side of the jet opposite Steve, but placed herself more towards the back of the jet, hoping for a peaceful flight. It wouldn't be too long before they were back at the helicarrier.

She had been pretty zoned out for most of the flight, tiredness was already taking its toll, but when Coulson went over to talk to Steve she tuned in on their conversation from a few seats away.

The conversation was going quite smoothly, which she was proud of him for as Coulson had been nervous to meet him. But then he went and said "I watched you while you were sleeping", and from there it was just a downhill plummet. She sat cringing as the two men got up to the front of the jet, and so tuned out of their conversation again and just focused on seeing Nat soon, and trying to stay awake.