In almost no time at all, the group were landing on the helicarrier. At the time of landing, it looked like a regular grade military ship, so the Captain looked rather in his element, making Eleanor smirk at the shock he would receive soon.

Eleanor was looking forward to getting off of the jet and seeing her girlfriend. It also meant that she could start personally getting involved in the hunt for Loki and the Tesseract.

Once the jet was fully powered off, Coulson, Steve, and Eleanor all walked off, the latter looked around and quickly spotted Nat walking toward them, she was presumably ordered to aid in introducing Steve and Bruce to the helicarrier.

They were both relieved to see each other, the last couple of days had been worrying for the pair with everything that had been going on, especially as they had been kept separate, so it was nice to see each other in good health.

Eleanor walked forward with large strides and met her in the middle, being engulfed in a hug soon after. "Hey you", Nat whispered whilst rubbing her back with one hand, the other holding her tightly, almost worried that she would disappear if she let go.

"Hi", Eleanor giggled before pulling away smiling, rubbing Nat's arms up and down in reassurance. They then both turned their attention to Steve and Coulson who were looking in their direction. Nat gestured to them with her head, signalling for the two to start walking over together.

When they had reached the men, Coulson introduced Nat and Steve to each other. "Ma'am", Steve nodded at her. Eleanor bit her lip to keep from laughing, she hadn't heard "ma'am" be used in a serious context before.

"Hi", Nat returned rather monotonously before turning to Coulson, "They need you on the bridge, they're starting the face-trace".

"See you there", Coulson responded as he walked away from the group.

The three began walking across the runway at a rather leisurely pace, Nat being in the middle, "It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice, I thought Coulson was gonna swoon", Nat smirked.

"Oh trust me, he did", Eleanor grimaced at the memory of Coulson trying to talk to Steve in the jet.

Nat looked over to Eleanor and stifled a laugh, guessing that she had to endure Coulson trying to impress Steve or something, before she turned back to the man himself, "Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?".

"Trading cards?", Steve replied with a tone of slight disbelief.

"They're vintage".

"He's very proud, and to be honest he's kept them in decent condition so kudos to him", Eleanor shrugged causing Nat to scoff at her quietly, "What? Gotta admire it".

Their conversation was soon interrupted though, "Dr Banner!", Steve called over to the man in a suit looking like a lost puppy. He walked over and the two men shook hands, Eleanor and Nat hanging back a bit listening in on their conversation.

Eleanor leaned her head on Nat's shoulder wanting some contact, so Nat reached around and placed her hand atop her shoulder.

"Oh yeah, hi, they told me you'd be coming", Bruce awkwardly started.

"Word is you can find the cube".

"Is that the only word on me?", this caused Eleanor to lift her head and frown at Nat slightly, not sure what Bruce was getting at, nat just lightly shook her head in response before they heard that the helicarrier was going to be in flight soon through their earpieces.

"Only word I care about", Steve nodded at the Doctor.

"Can we go in, I don't like this part", Eleanor mumbled to Nat who gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before removing her hold on it completely.

"Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute, it's gonna get a little hard to breathe".

Machine whirring could suddenly be heard as the helicarrier was being prepped, "Is this a submarine?".

"Really? They want me in a submerged, pressurised metal container?", Banner asked as the two walked to the edge.

They stood over the edge as it started to begin its flight, and Eleanor was tired of waiting, being inside of the helicarrier was much more comfortable during this part. "Fellas! I am begging you, let's go!", she shouted to be heard over the turbines. The two men nodded at each other before following Nat and Eleanor inside.

Once they walked into the entrance of the indoor part of the helicarrier, Eleanor breathed out a sigh of relief, "I don't think I will ever get used to that", she said causing Nat to chuckle.

"Well, I'm afraid you're gonna have to", Nat replied as she placed her hand on the small of the other's back as they walked.

Both men were oblivious to the closeness of the two Agents in front of them, sure the hug had been noticed, and the conversations and eye contact, but two and two weren't quite put together. Historians would call them best friends.

Nat turned around and smirked at the men's faces of awe as they walked into the bridge, it was impressive, the sheer size of it was overwhelming. She guided Eleanor to walk alongside her, with her hand still in the same place, and they walked over to some Agents on the other side of the giant room to check in on the progress being made.

"We've had some close matches, but no actual sightings, I'm sorry", the Agent nodded sympathetically at the two. They smiled gratefully anyways seeing how hard people were trying and turned back to walk to the top level of the bridge where Fury was standing with Banner.

They tuned into the conversation when they were close enough to hear Coulson, "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops...", Nat stopped walking and crouched down, looking at a screen with Barton's information on it and pulling up a new page. Eleanor just sadly frowned at it.

"If it's connected to a satellite it's eyes and ears for us", Coulson continued.

"That's still not gonna find them in time", Nat jumped in. Eleanor agreed, they were clearly hiding, unless they jumped out and started pulling faces directly into a camera this wasn't going to do anything.

"You have to narrow your field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?". Eleanor smiled at this, finally something that might be of some help.

"How many are there?".

"Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof, and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?". Eleanor wasn't going to lie, she was struggling to keep up with what Banner was saying but nodded along anyway, blindly agreeing with his plan.

"Agent Romanoff, could you show Dr Banner to his laboratory please?", Fury requested.

Nat looked at Eleanor and raised both eyebrows and smiled in amusement, receiving a grin before walking up to Banner. "You're gonna love it Doc, we got all the toys".

Eleanor watched her girlfriend leave, and then looked around in search of another person, smiling when she saw her. Quickly making her way over she waved in greeting, "Maria, hey!".

Maria looked away from someone else's computer that she was looking at, "Good to see you're up and about", she smiled.

"Mmm, it's good to be up and about", she smiled. She was lying though, her body was lagging behind as she really should be resting in an ideal world, this, however, was not an ideal world.

"I'm sorry I had to leave almost as soon as you woke up, if it were up to me I wouldn't have gone", Maria replied looking guilty.

"Hey, it's not a problem, really", she sounded genuine so Maria immediately smiled at her.

"Unless something really elaborate happens I don't think this is gonna pick up anything", Maria gestured towards a monitor, mirroring Eleanor's earlier thoughts.

"No, it won't, but Banner is doing some cluster recognition? To trace the cube so hopefully-", before she could finish her explanation Agent Sitwell shouted out.

"We got a hit. A 67% match".

"Nevermind", both women muttered.

"Wait, cross-match. 79%".

They quickly made their way over to Sitwell to look at what was happening on the screen, the image that popped up was undeniably Loki.

"Location?", Coulson demanded.

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28 Königstraße, they're not exactly hiding", Sitwell responded.

"Captain, you're up", the Director stated, "Hughes, go get Romanoff, we need our pilots".

"Well, duty calls", she turned to Maria, "I'll see you later". Maria nodded at her before going back to where she was before.

Eleanor swiftly walked over to the laboratory, it only taking a few minutes, she could have used comms but she needed to go and get into SHIELD uniform and her locker was on the way so she just headed in the direction of the lab with her fingers crossed that Nat was still there.

Luckily, when she got there she saw Banner setting stuff up, and Nat observing in interest, "Sorry to disturb, uh Nat we need to go".

Nat nodded and turned to Banner, "You okay in here then?".

"More than okay", he looked like a kid in a candy shop.

Nat smirked before walking out into the hall and looking at her questioningly, waiting for the elaboration of why they were rushing around. "We need to suit up and pilot, there's been a Loki sighting in Germany, 79% match, it's definitely them. Cap's coming too obviously".

"Right", Nat nodded. They made their way to the locker area and got into their uniform in record time, before taking a jog to the runway, time is of the essence.

Nat took her position in the pilot's seat, Eleanor in the co-pilot, and Steve hung around towards the middle. After a few buttons were pushed and switches were switched, the jet was soon in the air and gaining speed. Germany here they come.

---

Steve didn't really speak much at all during the flight, but Nat and Eleanor made some small talk to keep from getting bored. They mostly talked about how much they wanted to nap, they had both been awake for a long time now, and also about eating a meal, naming lots of different foods that they would like to cook right now. It really wasn't helping as they were just making each other hungrier.

When they reached the area that Loki was in, they saw a crowd of people kneeling before them. "What the...", Eleanor started but soon trailed off as she saw an old man standing and he was very likely to get killed by Loki any second now.

"This guy's gonna get himself killed", she pushed a few buttons to get the door open and turned to Steve, "Might wanna do your thing now".

"Yeah", he nodded before jumping out and running down the street towards the crowd.

After the two women saw him deflect the blast, they decided to make their appearance. Nat manoeuvered the jet into Loki's eye-line, whilst Eleanor made the jet's gun pop out of its hatch.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down", Nat said over the speaker. This only seemed to anger Loki, they blasted the jet but luckily Nat skilfully moved so that it wouldn't hit them.

"That was friendly", Eleanor said, her words laced with sarcasm.

"Yeah, that was a great party trick".

Nat moved the jet closer, and Eleanor tried to aim their own weapon at Loki just in case but wasn't able to get a lock on them, "They're all over the place".

Both women's thoughts were interrupted by "Shoot to Thrill" by AC/DC suddenly being blasted over the PA. "Once again, what the...", Eleanor started as the screen was flashing with system override.

"Agent Romanoff, you miss me?", the unmistakable voice of Tony Stark.

They suddenly saw Iron Man flying past the jet, "Just straight up got ignored", Eleanor mumbled, causing Nat to look at her and scoff.

"Not the worst thing in the world".

Eleanor hummed in agreement as they watched Iron Man blast Loki backwards, and the God getup faded away during the surrender.

Nat landed the jet in the now clear area, and Stark and Cap brought Loki aboard, placing them on a seat.

"Romanoff", Tony nodded at her, and Nat gave a nod in response. He then turned to look at Eleanor, "Wife", he smirked, causing the two women to roll their eyes and face the front, getting the jet up into the air.

"Wife?", Steve questioned, at first thinking that Tony was calling Eleanor his wife.

"Yeah, you don't get one of those spies without the other showing up, learnt that the hard way". Once again they rolled their eyes at how annoying he was.

"Haven't quite got the wife title yet, Stark", Eleanor responded with gritted teeth, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, but also needing to clear it up a bit with Steve, who was clearly confused.

A look of realisation flashed across Steve's face, "Let's just focus on getting back shall we", Steve directed at Stark. Eleanor was relieved that the conversation was diverted, and looked over at Nat who seemed to be thinking the same.