"I was wrong, Director, the world hasn't changed a bit", Nat and Eleanor heard Steve say as they neared the entrance of the lab.

Once inside, Nat removed her hand from her girlfriend's shoulder and walked toward Banner. Eleanor stayed near Thor who had walked in a few paces ahead of them. She didn't want to walk in too far with the room being full of hostile energy, and Thor seemed to be quite levelheaded at the time of entry.

"Did you know about this?", Bruce directed toward Natasha. Eleanor was confused so frowned slightly, before looking to the side and seeing a Phase 2 weapon planted on the table. Ah. They got found out.

"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?", Nat replied dryly, keeping her calm. No one particularly wanted to deal with the Hulk today, on a helicarrier thousands of feet in the air.

"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed", he sarcastically responded back, making Eleanor send a small glare in his direction.

Natasha walked towards him more, "Loki is manipulating you".

"And you've been doing what, exactly?".

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you".

Everyone in the room was looking at this interaction with mostly blank expressions with a hint of frustration, but Eleanor was just straight up scowling at the man now. They had just learnt that Loki wanted to unleash the Hulk and Banner didn't seem to be taking this seriously and was instead deflecting.

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy, I'd like to know why SHIELD has been using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction".

Eleanor has never particularly agreed with Phase 2, but she knew SHIELD's reasoning for the plans, and so decided to speak up for the first time since getting here, "Because we have discovered that Earth is massively weak compared to other forces that we have come across. Such as Gods from space with a magic mind control stick", she retorted with sarcasm lacing the end of her statement.

Bruce looked like he was going to say something else, likely something to argue back at her, but he wasn't given the chance. "She's right", Fury backed her up, "Because of him", he pointed towards Thor.

"Me?", Thor questioned with his arms crossed.

"Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that levelled a small town. We learned that not only are we alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned".

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet", Thor tried to reason.

"Tell that to the walking, talking master of manipulation with an alien army a few floors down", Eleanor scoffed. She was trying to reason with them even though she herself thought that there were flaws, but they all needed to be on the same page as SHIELD with Loki trying to rule Earth. Nat smirked slightly at the responses coming from her girlfriend, even though she wasn't joining in herself, she was more of an observer.

Fury nodded, "Your people aren't the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled".

"Like you controlled the cube?", Steve questioned, seemingly not satisfied by the reasoning that had been presented in this altercation.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and their allies", Thor stepped towards Fury, "It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war".

"A higher form? You forced our hand. We had to come up with something", Fury continued arguing.

Eleanor was honestly done with this conversation, it was clear that people's opinions weren't swaying, so she slowly made her way over to Natasha, who gave her a small smile seeing her walk over before the two turned their attention back to the men.

"A nuclear deterrent. Because that always calms everything right down", Tony sarcastically stated, and although Eleanor would never admit this out loud, she actually agreed with something that Tony Stark said. Shock horror.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?".

"I'm sure if he still made weapons Stark would be neck-deep", Steve added on to Fury's statement.

"Hold on. How is this now about me?".

"I'm sorry isn't everything?".

This was now just turning into a playground argument full of weak insults, so Eleanor let out a breath of annoyance and turned her head away slightly, turning back once Thor started speaking again.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this". Fury didn't like this at all.

"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?".

"You treat your champions with such mistrust".

Natasha had now also had enough, "Are you boys really that naïve? SHIELD monitors potential threats". Eleanor tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows briefly in agreeance, that was the organisation's literal M.O.

"Captain America's on threat watch?", Bruce questioned in disbelief.

"We all are", Nat replied, her fuse running short now.

"Wait, you're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?", Stark piped up.

"Stark so help me God if you make one more wisecrack-", Steve began.

"Threat! Verbal threat! I feel threatened".

"Christ almighty", Eleanor muttered, this was not the time for Stark and Rogers to start another petty argument, people need to sort their priorities before some kind of civil war breaks out in the middle of the lab.

"Show some respect".

"Respect what?", Stark answered.

Eleanor couldn't even keep up with the conversation anymore, everyone was talking over each other. "Will you all just shut up! We need to-", she had gotten everyone's attention but was interrupted by Thor, making her want to wallop him on the back of the head, but she restrained, not wanting to be smacked by a God.

"Yes good idea, you all speak of control and yet you court chaos".

"That's his M.O. isn't it?", Banner started, making all of their heads snap towards him. "I mean, what are we? A team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb".

"You need to step away", Fury directed the man.

Eleanor ran her hand down her face, this needed to de-escalate now. Natasha shared her frustrations but kept her gaze on Banner.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?", Stark spoke up, causing several looks of 'are you crazy?!' to be sent in his general direction.

Steve was getting increasingly angrier, and snapped when Tony patted his shoulder, "You know damn well why. Back off!", he shoved Stark away.

"I'm starting to want you to make me".

The last thing they needed was a fight in the middle of the helicarrier, but nothing seemed to be relieving the tensions, it was only getting worse.

"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off and what are you?".

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist". Eleanor stifled a laugh at seeing Nat tilt her head in a 'fair enough' way.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you".

"I think I would just cut the wire".

Steve smirked at the group, "Always a way out, you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero".

"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle".

"Fellas!", Eleanor half-shouted, "Is this really the time?", she just received harsh glares from the two men, making her take a step back with her hands up, showing that she had officially given up. "Men", she mumbled to Nat, making her nod.

"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds".

Thor laughed, "You people are so petty, and tiny".

"Yeah, this is a team", Banner contributed.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr Banner back to his-", Fury began.

"Where? You rented my room".

"The cell was just in case-".

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't. I know, I tried".

At this, Eleanor's stare turned into a blank, but soft expression, she felt for the man.

"I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out. So, I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff?", he said, grabbing the sceptre when directing the speech to Nat. Eleanor's soft look immediately went back to a harsh one. She took a step forward and hovered her fingertips over the gun that was in her belt holster.

"You wanna know how I stay calm?".

"Dr Banner", Fury warned.

"Put down the sceptre", Fury continued.

Bruce looked down, confusion flashing across his features, clearly not knowing that he had picked it up. Eleanor frowned slightly about how that could have happened, but before she could think too much about it one of the computers across the room started beeping.

"Sorry kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all", Bruce said whilst heading over to the monitor.

"You located the Tesseract?".

"I could get there fastest", Stark added on, clearly still carrying on the petty competition between him and Cap.

Natasha headed over to where Bruce was, so Eleanor automatically followed. "The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it".

Eleanor could hear Steve and Tony arguing but was more focused on the look of extreme confusion and shock on Banner's face as the computer continued to beep.

"Oh my God".