The two spent the next morning packing as they flew out to Monaco that day. They would be flying out at very similar times, Nat's flight left 45 minutes before Eleanor's. Due to it being race weekend there were quite a few flights to their destination. They would have been able to get the same plane, but when they gained access through SHIELD on the flight list they saw the names of quite a few reporters and thought it would be better safe than sorry and fly completely separately; even though it was likely no one would pay attention to 'Natalie Rushman' at all.

"Which dress, детка?", Nat held up a coral dress and a pastel yellow dress.

"Uhh, the pinky one", Eleanor responded before packing up some more tech she would need to have in her hotel room.

"Pinky?", Nat said chuckling slightly, "Alright".

Once they had made sure that everything was packed, they made their way down to the taxi waiting for them. They would be able to ride to the airport together but would have to go their separate ways after that. They were both being overly-paranoid, but people would do anything to get 'the scoop' on Stark, and now being his assistant, even if very new, put a bit of a target on her back. The press is crazy. She would have flown out with the others but she had been asked to fly out slightly early so that everything was ready for when Stark and Pepper arrived.

When settled into the taxi, Nat grabbed ahold of Eleanor's hand, softly rubbing her thumb across her knuckles, she knew that Eleanor was a bit uneasy with commercial flying, and was gutted that she wouldn't be there to comfort her, so the taxi ride beforehand would have to do in this situation. Eleanor squeezed her hand a few times throughout the ride to make sure that Nat knew the gesture was working and being appreciated.

Once at the airport, they grabbed their suitcases and walked away from each other a bit, giving each other a small nod that spoke a thousand words, before Nat walked through the entrance, Eleanor waiting a few seconds to follow. It was rather busy in the airport so they got pushed around a little bit by people in a rush and not caring, which was not helping Eleanor's nerves, but she continued, looking as though nothing was bothering her.

It took about 15 minutes to get to the right section of the airport, and they had about an hour until Nat's flight took off. The two ended up in the same waiting area due to the gates being in close proximity, so they sat so that they could see each other, but were still far enough away.

They spent the entire time texting each other, judging the strangers walking by, occasionally glancing at each other with smirks if they found something especially funny. Natasha found it particularly funny when a businessman was speed walking whilst texting and walked straight into someone, spilling his coffee all over the floor, whereas Eleanor was mourning the loss of the delicious beverage.

Unfortunately, time passed rather quickly and Nat was being summoned to her gate, the two once again looking at each other briefly before she disappeared into the crowd of people wanting to catch their flight.

It had been a few minutes since Nat got on her plane, Eleanor was now extremely bored, time was passing super slowly, every time she glanced at the clock she swore she saw time going backwards, not forwards, but she had to sit and wait. She passed the time by counting the tiles that were on the floor. After what felt like years, she too was being called to her flight. The pair were now both in the sky.

---

Nat arrived about 2 hours or so before Tony and the others did, so she went to her room to get dressed, chuckling slightly at the memory of Eleanor picking it out earlier, and set up her end of the communications network before heading down to the bar area. She made sure that the table reservation for Tony had gone through okay, and then rung the hotel they were staying at to check that Tony's room was fully ready with all of his ridiculous requests. Luckily both were fine so she just had to loiter around the bar for a while.

Eleanor arrived an hour before Tony did, which gave her plenty of time to set up her hotel room. It was pretty small, she didn't get the top suites as Stark Industries employees did, but there was enough room. She unpacked all of her clothes and put them away, before setting up the various monitors, laptops, and radio equipment on the small desk opposite the bed. It didn't take long, after packing and unpacking this equipment hundreds of times Eleanor could do it with her eyes closed if she wanted to.

Once everything was set up, she put on her headphones and connected to Nat's earpiece channel. "What up, Rushman?".

Nat nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden voice in her ear, a few people giving odd glances at her in the bar, so she had to play it off as 'she almost tripped'. It didn't really work but luckily people didn't care and were more interested in the alcohol in their hands and the influential people they could have conversations with.

She excused herself to go to the toilet, hoping that the whole room was empty, which it thankfully was. "You almost gave me a heart attack", She spoke harshly into the earpiece.

"Keyword being almost", Eleanor smirked which was met with silence, "Wow, I can see the eye-roll from here". She heard Nat chuckle at that comment.

Nat's tone quickly changed into a soft tone though, "How was the flight over, were you okay?".

"Yeah I was fine thank you", She replied sweetly at the concern.

"I can't stay in the toilets for too long or people might get weirded out so I'm going to have to stop talking to you now", she was a bit disappointed because she had nothing else to do and never got bored of their conversations.

"Ooo, a one-sided conversation where you can't reply, this shall be fun", Eleanor giggled whilst rubbing her hands together.

"Love you, dumbass", was the last thing Nat said before heading back out.

"Love you too".

---

The next hour was filled with Nat having to listen to Eleanor's monologue of ramblings and terrible jokes. It was entertaining, but she was having a hard time keeping a straight face. She almost inhaled an ice cube when Eleanor nailed an impression of Maria being the one doing this undercover mission instead of them.

Nat then saw Stark's car pulling up outside, which Eleanor also saw on the security cameras she had up on one of her various monitors. Nat quickly mumbled, "Okay love, you're gonna need to shut up now".

"Yup, I see him".

She walked through the bar to greet them, "Hello, how was your flight?".

"It was excellent, boy it's nice to see you", Tony replied, making both women cringe a bit.

"We have one photographer from the ACM, if you don't mind?", She gestured to the cameras, and then quickly snatched away the alcohol Tony picked up, not what they wanted in the photoshoot. Watching through the camera, Eleanor stifled a laugh, glad to be on this side of the screen.

Tony and Pepper started a hushed conversation that Nat couldn't quite hear, but that she had to interrupt to get them to the table and not hovering around the entrance, "Right this way", she smiled at the pair and turned to walk.

Tony followed, "You look fantastic".

"Why thank you very much". Eleanor was finding this whole ordeal very funny, and it had only been about 20 seconds.

"But that's unprofessional, what's on the docket?".

"You have a 9:30 dinner", Nat replied.

"Perfect, I'll be there at 11".

"Absolutely".

"Is this us?", Tony asked as they neared a table.

"It can be", she responded nicely.

Eleanor was finding it weird hearing her usually blunt girlfriend having to talk so cheerily at all times.

"Great. Make it us".

"Jeez, he's a bit demanding", Eleanor said through the earpiece. Nat could only internally chuckle, heavily agreeing with her statement.

When Nat saw a waiter come over she saw this as the perfect opportunity to fulfil Stark's table demand, she had to be quite persuasive as the table was actually reserved for someone else, but luckily her charm, as always, worked.

Whilst Nat couldn't see or hear Tony anymore, Eleanor still had eyes on the room. She saw Hammer start interacting with Tony. "Great, Hammer's bugging them". Nat sighed and moved to look over. "They're with the press lady, I'm gonna need you to shut that situation down pretty fast, Nat".

After Nat had seen the group sit down and begin talking, she immediately went over to Tony, "Mr Stark, your corner table is ready", and the two began walking to the table. Not without Tony trying to get a rise out of Hammer one last time, however.

"Hammer needs a slot, Christine!".

---

Everything was going relatively smoothly until Tony was Tony. "Uh Nat, Tony's left the building and I don't have eyes on him, the crowds in this place are unbelievable".

"What?", She quietly hissed back into the earpiece, then she heard Pepper calling her over, "Hold on a sec". Nat was growing increasingly frustrated with the situation but had to act calm for Pepper and be at her beck and call as normal.

She pushed her way past a few people to try and reach her, "Yes Miss Potts?".

"Did you know about this?", She referenced at the TV, and so Eleanor zoomed in on it on one of the laptops, seeing that Tony was getting into a race car.

"Oh shit".

"This is the first that I have known of it". This is what Fury had been talking about.

Whilst Nat was talking to Pepper, Eleanor started trying to get in contact with today's manager of the track, trying to get him to pull Tony off, but she couldn't get through.

"This cannot happen", Pepper said, exasperated.

"Absolutely, I understand, how can I help you?".

"Where's Happy?".

"He's outside".

"Okay, get him. I need Happy".

"Right away", Nat said before swiftly walking out, she couldn't do anything herself but getting Happy to try and mediate the situation was her best chance so she was rushing like a madman to get to him.

"What is it with these people, did they not learn the word 'please'?", Eleanor mumbled out loud.

"Not the time hun", Nat quietly responded, her words being blocked to the others in the bar due to how loud it was.

"Oh hi Nat, forgot you could hear me".

Nat had now reached outside but was having a hard time locating Happy due to the crowds, "10 o'clock", Eleanor spoke through comms, looking through more CCTV. As soon as she heard that Nat needed to go and grab, Eleanor had located him just in case.

"Right".

She sped walked over to Happy, "Pepper needs you, Tony's on the track". He nodded and quickly entered the building.

"What a day, huh?", Nat heard through comms, causing her to smirk and shake her head a little before rushing back inside herself.

"Oh I did try to get Tony off the track but those asses running the show aren't answering me, he's going to be racing".

Nat sighed, "Well, we tried".

---

Eleanor now had the footage of the race on one of her screens, watching the whole thing play out. She and Nat couldn't exactly do anything about this, Natalie Rushman would be compromised and Eleanor wasn't supposed to show her face to Tony just in case she was also needed as an undercover. It wasn't ideal but it was the best that they could do in this situation.

Both women then suddenly saw a guy in an orange jumpsuit walk out into the middle of the track. "What the shit?", Eleanor said under her breath, causing Nat to involuntarily nod a little, confused at what was going on as well.

Then he suddenly pulled out some electric whips and his clothing burned and crumbled around him, leaving some weird electrical get-up. "Uhhh, Nat?".

"Yeah, I see it".

Eleanor was now in correspondence with some other SHIELD Agents, as this was very much not a normal occurrence to happen during a race.

Then he started slicing cars in half, it was becoming quite possible that Eleanor would have to step in, but she was being told by Fury currently to wait it out, they didn't want to rush her into the field if it wasn't extremely necessary.

Whilst she was speaking to Fury, Stark's car was suddenly sliced, sending him flying, and causing an altercation between the two.

At this, Fury told her to start heading down to the track, and so she replaced her headphones with an earpiece and took off at a sprint. Practically flying down the stairs as she did not have time to wait for the lift as there were people occupying it, she swiftly arrived outside and bolted down the street in the direction of the race. She had managed to reach the edge of the track pretty fast but was struggling with getting through the crowd, so she was having to squeeze her way through.

Tony looked like he was getting his ass handed to him, so Nat hopped on comms. She wasn't happy about asking her to go and try and fight the guy with the dangerous unknown weapons, but Stark was probably gonna die at this rate. "El, you might need to-", she was cut short by watching Happy run over the guy, "Nevermind".

Eleanor herself then spoke through her earpiece, "Yeah, I'm down there right now". She had reached the front of the crowd, but now that Stark's life wasn't in the 100% chance of death range, she wasn't rushing to go on the track and reveal herself.

"You're what?". Nat hadn't been aware of this as Eleanor's focus had been mainly on trying not to get hit by cars and so a quick briefing to Nat had been completely forgotten.

"Fury told me to try and hold him off, but now that the entire Mystery Inc. gang are here I'm just hovering around in the crowd". Nat then heard the crash from Happy's car through comms.

"Be careful".

"Don't worry love I think Happy's got it covered", she chuckled.

It was quite entertaining watching Happy try and run him over, again and again, the only thing missing was popcorn.

---

After the Monaco fiasco, the two were now back in the Miami apartment.

They sat on the kitchen barstools, Nat doing some admin work for her 'job' at Stark Industries that were boring her to death. Unfortunately, she had to do it so that Natalie Rushman could keep her job. She would really rather be doing anything else than organising meetings and dealing with scheduling conflicts.

Meanwhile, Eleanor was doing some SHIELD work, aiding in building the case on the weird electric whip guy that they had identified as Ivan Vanko. He was now being detained, but it was worrying that they found the similarities between his and Stark's technology. So far, with the rising of people trying to imitate Stark, it had been a bust, which was of some comfort. But now, someone had managed to create an actual weapon and used it based on bad motives, just weeks after Stark said people were years off. Worrying.

Nat turned to look at her girlfriend who was buried in her copious amounts of work, she would be able to help later. "Do you think this guys a one off?".

"I'd like to hope that it's a fluke, but can't be too sure", Eleanor mumbled back halfheartedly, "Fury wants me at that party Stark's throwing in case something kicks off".

Nat nodded, not very happy with this development, this undercover mission was not supposed to be this action-packed. "I guess we have to avoid each other again, huh?", She said trying to lighten the dull mood that had fallen on the pair.

"Yup, gotta keep a low profile, and he always has his eyes on you so, can't be seen with you especially", Sending Nat a wink at the end, which earned a gentle shove from her.

After an hour or so, Nat was able to start helping with the Vanko case, she mostly looked over the blueprints of his tech, whilst Eleanor had moved on to writing report after report on the incident. Tonight was going to be a late one.