Sitting in a car outside of an old warehouse late at night, Eleanor sat waiting for her and the team to be able to make the arrests. Fury was right, this had been easy; the people in the ring had not been subtle. At all. She was sitting with two other Agents, the other two were in a car across the street. All of her focus was on the task at hand, they could not afford for this to go wrong or it was just a lot more work for all of them. That would be effort.

"Targets are on their way, prepare to engage", she heard through her earpiece. This was it, they just had to do this, then she could go home. 2 weeks was too long, she just wanted to be back with Nat and Clint. Her hand was hovering over the door handle, waiting to see the targets exit the warehouse, they needed to be able to apprehend them quickly, ensuring there wouldn't be an escapee. Again, that would be a lot of effort re-tracking them down.

As soon as the doors to the warehouse opened, all of the SHIELD Agents leapt into action. There were 7 targets they needed to take down. She was hoping that this would go smoothly, but the targets immediately became hostile when they spotted them.

One ran at her, aiming a kick to her stomach, to which she blocked and used his momentum to push him backwards, one swift blow to the head and he was knocked out. She could see that a few more targets had also been detained, or were passed out on the floor. The team were doing a good job.

Not having long to regain composure, one grabbed her from behind, putting her in a headlock, and pointed a gun at her head. This wasn't ideal.

"What are you gonna do now?", he seethed, she tried to remain calm and think of a way out of this, they didn't seem to value human life so if anything pissed him off he would likely just shoot, so it had to be sudden and quick.

This situation caught the attention of some other SHIELD Agents who looked over with concern, one began making her way over to help her, causing her to panic slightly, this might cause him to get even more aggressive if people intervene. So without a second thought, Eleanor jumped into the air pushing him back slightly and then lurched forward with power and planted her feet firmly on the ground, throwing him over her head. He landed with a hard thud.

The Agent who came to help quickly put him in handcuffs, whilst Eleanor did the same to the guy she had knocked out earlier. Looking around, she could see that all of the targets were immobilised, and they started loading them into the holding van that the other Agents had driven in.

She smiled to herself, the mission had been a success, albeit it had a few bumps in the road. But they could now go home. Getting back into the car, she drove her and the two Agents she had arrived with to the agreed-upon extraction point, where she could see the jet waiting for them.

---

Walking out of the jet and into the hangar, she saw Maria waiting for her. She ran into her arms, Maria hugged her tightly, she had missed the younger Agent during her absence and had become especially concerned when learning she was briefly held at gunpoint.

They pulled away from the hug and grinned at each other. Eleanor was very happy to see her, Maria always felt like home.

"Good job", Maria told her, still smiling.

"Thank you", Eleanor had now started looking behind Maria, Clint usually also greeted her after missions, and vice versa.

Maria gave a sympathetic smile, "Him and Romanoff are in Budapest, the mission that finalised her joining".

"Oh... right. When do they get back?", she was a bit disappointed as she had been looking forward to seeing them again, and now she would have to wait even longer.

"Not long, they left about a day after you did, they should be back tomorrow evening", she patted Eleanor on the shoulder, "Buuuut in the meantime... Pizza and movies?" she said smirking.

"Oh hell yeah!", the two women started swiftly walking to their residential block, getting into cosy clothing and inhaling their pizza. They started the night off watching "Hot Fuzz", and then did the usual Friends marathon.

At about 1 am, the two said goodnight, and Maria made her way back to her own room. Now all Eleanor had to do was sleep the wait away and she would be able to see her friends again. It felt good to be back in her own bed again, and so she very quickly drifted into a dreamless slumber.

---

Natasha felt disgusted with herself. She had been in Budapest for 2 weeks, completing her and Barton's mission. They were assassinating Dreykov, leader of The Red Room, which she was perfectly fine with, that man did not deserve life. However, it was proving harder than they both thought, so they had to come up with a plan, unfortunately using his daughter to pinpoint his location, and then spending a hefty amount of time on the run from the authorities. Apparently, people don't like it when you blow up a building.

Now that she was back on the jet on her way back to HQ and her mind had time to unwind, she was haunted by the image of that burning building. She couldn't believe her actions, but she needed a way out, and now The Red Room was gone. She didn't see how else they could have done it in the small window that they had.

Clint was worried about her, he knew that he needed to give her space, and so just kept giving occasional glances from afar. He too felt guilty about what had happened in Budapest, but not to the extent of Nat, he was able to put it behind him and focus on getting the two of them home.

Both of their thoughts were interrupted when they felt the jet come to a standstill. Home. Nat had practically run off of the jet, wanting to just forget the mission she had been on.

Once she was back on solid ground she looked forward, seeing Eleanor standing waiting for them, the younger woman soon made eye contact with Nat and smiled at her.

With Nat's mind already being tormented by hurting a child, all she could see when she looked at Eleanor was that 14-year-old girl she had seen all of those years ago, who she had also hurt. She felt her eyes gloss over and her chest tighten. Not wanting to break down in front of people, she hastily started walking towards her room, gaze fixed on the floor.

Eleanor's smile immediately turned into a face of concern, what the hell happened on that mission? She walked over to Barton who gave her a quick side hug.

"Is she okay?".

Barton responded by explaining what had happened and how guilty she had felt about how they achieved the goal of their mission.

Eleanor was shocked that it had happened but knew there was a bigger goal here, triggering the collapse of The Red Room, and saving hundreds of girls.

"Go and see her, she seemed pretty lost when you left, and then we pretty much immediately had to jump into action ourselves, be her anchor okay?". She nodded and pulled Clint into a hug, before walking off toward Nat.

---

She hesitated before knocking on Nat's door, she didn't want to upset her even more than she was, but she decided to bite the bullet and go for it. After a few seconds, she heard some shuffling before seeing the door opening slightly. Nat saw it was Eleanor and so left the door open slightly before walking back to her bed, having no energy to say anything.

Opening the door wider at a slow pace, she looked over at Natasha, seeing someone broken sitting in front of her. She wasn't crying, she just looked numb. It wasn't a nice sight. Nat was avoiding eye contact, looking everywhere but at Eleanor.

Closing the door for privacy, she walked over to the bed and sat down next to her, leaving a bit of a gap, wanting to respect boundaries. She didn't look at Nat, as she didn't want to pressure her or make her feel awkward, so she just looked forward at the wall. Perhaps the tactic from night 2 of their evening routine would work, she thought.

Nat eventually looked up at Eleanor, and the younger woman could feel Nat burning a hole in the side of her head with her eyes. She turned her head slightly and held eye contact. Nat was terrified at this point but wanted to feel the comfort that she got from being around her. She looked down at her lap and said "I'm sorry", in barely a whisper.

"For what?".

"I hurt her, and you". Eleanor had put all of that behind her already, but clearly, Nat was struggling and she hated seeing Nat beating herself up.

She reached out, using her pointer finger she placed it under Nat's chin, forcing her to look at her and then retracted her hand. "Hey, we're not doing that, okay? That... is in the past, I'm good. And you saved hundreds of people's Nat, you're a hero okay? A hero".

Nat just stared into her eyes, trying to detect a lie, but she couldn't see one. A stray tear rolled down her cheek and she internally cursed herself, but she just didn't have the strength to hold everything in right now.

"C'mere", Eleanor quietly said, bringing Nat into a hug and holding her tight. The initial contact made Nat tense up, but after a few seconds she relaxed into the hold and broke down.

Nat had buried her head into the crook of Eleanor's neck, quiet sobs escaping, she hated herself for it but the exhaustion had gotten the better of her. Eleanor lightly rubbed Nat's back, hoping to try and calm her down. Quietly saying reassurances over and over, "You're okay", "You're safe", "I'm here, no one will hurt you again, okay?". Hearing the last one, Nat's grip on Eleanor tightened and her crying subsided a bit, she felt safe; and this was something that she hadn't felt often in her life.

They stayed in this position for a while. Nat was exhausted from the last week, and the crying had taken a toll on her energy levels.

Eleanor had felt Nat get heavy in her arms. "Hey", she whispered.

When there was no response, her suspicions were confirmed, Nat had fallen asleep. She carefully manoeuvred her so that she was laying on the bed, and placed a blanket over her.

She debated whether to leave or not, but didn't want to be too far away in case she was needed in the night. So, she settled down on the tiny sofa in the corner of the room, falling asleep pretty quickly, even though it wasn't very comfortable.

---

When Nat awoke the next morning, she was extremely confused, she didn't remember getting into bed. She played through her memories of last night, the last thing she remembered was the hug. Then it clicked. She was embarrassed, and her walls immediately flew up. Abruptly sitting up, she scanned her room.

When she saw Eleanor curled up in a ball on the sofa it made a warm feeling spread through her chest, she cared. But, it also made her panic more as she felt pathetic for yesterday's events. She just stared at the sleeping figure, not sure what to do now. Was she supposed to wake her up? Or perhaps just go about her business as normal?

After a few minutes, Eleanor had also woken up, she sat and stretched, before turning her head to the woman who was staring at her with a cold look. It was pretty intimidating.

"Are you okay?", she offered a small smile.

Nat squinted her eyes slightly, "I'm fine".

Eleanor slowly nodded whilst biting the inside of her cheek, and looking down at her hands. This was awkward, and she didn't know what to do.

Nat was still staring, trying to figure out what the next move was. She also didn't know what to do, so instead got up, and went into the bathroom to get ready. Whilst she was gone, Eleanor decided to go and grab them some coffees from the cafeteria. Coffee is a good peace offering.

When Nat came back out of the bathroom, she saw that the younger woman was gone, she felt bad, not knowing if she upset her, or seemed ungrateful for last night's events. All of these swirling thoughts were interrupted by the strawberry blonde kicking on the door. Kicking doors seemed to be her forte.

When it was opened she was greeted by a confused Nat who hadn't been expecting her return, "I got coffee!", she announced.

This caused a small smile to form on Nat's lips before it immediately dropped again, "Thank you", she said coldly again, grabbing the cup before turning around and sitting on the bed.

Eleanor didn't know what she had done wrong and felt tears form as she looked to the floor. She was one of those people where if someone was mad at her, she had to try very hard not to burst into tears.

"I'm sorry", Eleanor said whilst looking at the floor, she didn't know what she had done but in her eyes, it was clear that she had somehow upset Natasha.

"For what?". This was starting to sound like the conversation from last night.

"I made you mad, so I'm sorry, I'll leave you to it", she looked at the redhead with a sad smile and turned around.

"No, don't go".

Now Eleanor was confused at the mixed signals, she slowly turned around again meeting Nat's gaze.

"I'm not mad at you... I'm just overwhelmed".

"Oh", she responded delicately, at least she knew she wasn't the problem now.

"I'm grateful you were there, but I was weak last night. It's pathetic".

"You're not pathetic for showing emotions Nat, it makes you human, and as a human speaking to another human, I can assure you it's normal", she replied with a small, but goofy smile.

This made Nat chuckle, she was relieved that she didn't push away the only person who had ever bothered with her. Nat stared down at her lap, once again not knowing what to do, a common theme this morning.

Meanwhile, Eleanor was brainstorming, she couldn't go all therapist mode on Nat, that would only make things worse. Besides, she was in no position to do that. Small, fun gestures were the way to move forward.

"Would you like to listen to some music?".

Nat looked up and furrowed her brows, "Huh?".

"Music, listening to some upbeat stuff when I'm feeling down makes me feel a bit better".

Nat just responded with a shrug, not being very familiar with this coping mechanism.

Eleanor put the coffee down, got out her phone, and selected an upbeat song.

She grabbed her coffee and sat on the opposite end of the bed to Nat and moved her head around a little bit at the initial slow tempo. She never danced or anything around people, but Nat needed cheering up, so having a bit of mindless fun was very much needed.

As the chorus hit, she moved her upper body and arms around a bit, coffee in hand, with no coordination whatsoever, looking like an absolute idiot. However, Nat was laughing a bit at the weird display happening in front of her. This carried on throughout the choruses, 'God this is embarrassing' Eleanor thought to herself. But, when she saw Nat moving her head to the beat a little bit, she just started grinning from ear to ear. Earning a cheesy smile from Nat. Sometimes having a good bop along to some music can really lift someone's spirits, even if it does look visually weird.

"That's a good song", Nat said chuckling a bit, she had enjoyed the silly domestic moment, something she had not experienced much in her life.

"Yeah?", Eleanor said whilst shuffling closer to Nat.

"Yeah. Thanks", she laid her head on top of Eleanor's shoulder, and Eleanor put her head on top of Nat's.

They both sighed contentedly, with Nat in much better spirits than she had been in a while. It would take time to recover from the events of the recent mission, but this time she had people to help her.