With the jet now up in the air, and a large portion of the journey being complete, Tony and Steve were discussing Loki, whilst Nat and Eleanor sat at the front, their main focus on piloting, the men could deal with Loki at the back.
They had a bit of small talk but mostly sat in comfortable silence, with Loki being in the jet they didn't feel as comfortable with talking freely and cracking jokes, and Nat wanted to keep up a professional front with them for now.
Fury had warned the Agents that he would contact them in the middle of their flight to do a check-in, so it wasn't a surprise when they heard Fury's voice come in over the radio. "They saying anything?".
Nat turned to look at Eleanor who just jutted her bottom lip out slightly and shook her head, eyes trained on looking out of the window. "Not a word", Nat responded for the two of them.
Loki had been completely silent over the course of the flight, which seemed uncharacteristic for them, especially when Tony had begun trying to annoy them by staring, which Eleanor quickly shut down because she didn't want an annoyed God on their jet. The silence was worrying, but they just needed to focus on getting Loki back to base. One problem at a time.
"Just get them here, we're low on time", Fury responded over the radio.
Whilst Nat started adjusting some of the switches on the board in front of them, Eleanor turned back around to see Steve and Tony talking in a hushed manner, so she squinted her eyes at them. Deciding to join in, she unclipped herself from her seat and squeezed Nat's shoulder before getting up and heading over to the two men. Nat was confused at first but twigged onto what she was doing when she watched Eleanor walk away.
"I don't remember it being that easy, they pack a wallop", Steve said as Eleanor reached the pair, she immediately knew that he was referencing Loki giving up when Iron Man arrived and not putting up a fight at all since. Steve gave a half-hearted smile at her, and Tony just gave her a quick nod.
"Still, you are pretty spry for an older fellow", Tony directed at Steve.
"That's funny Stark, I said the same thing about you", Eleanor smirked.
Tony let his jaw drop before smirking back and playfully shaking his head, she was a worthy competitor. "I'm not 200 years old like the Cap here, what's your thing, Pilates?".
Steve frowned, "What?".
"It's like callisthenics, you might have missed a couple of things doing time as a capsicle".
"Pilates can be fun to be fair", Eleanor absentmindedly muttered whilst looking towards Loki, trying to figure them out. Steve looked at her and shook his head slightly trying to re-focus on his conversation with Tony. He thought that she was a nice woman but was a little bit thrown off by her energy, especially as she is a spy in the intelligence business.
"Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in", Steve spoke to Tony in a rather stern tone, making Eleanor snap her head towards him.
"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you". Eleanor frowned at Tony, not liking where this conversation was headed.
The trio were cut off by sudden, large amounts of lightning striking around the jet. "Where's this coming from?", Nat mumbled whilst looking around outside. Eleanor went back to the front and leaned over next to Nat to try and get a look at what was going on, they would have been warned if they were going to be going through a storm.
"What's the matter? Are you scared of a little lightning?", Steve said when he noticed that Loki was looking a little antsy at this new development.
"I'm not overly fond of what follows".
Both Eleanor and Nat looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, having no clue about what Loki was referencing, but right before Nat was going to say something to her, something heavy landed on top of the jet making it shake.
Everyone went slightly wide-eyed before jumping into action, Tony put on his helmet, along with Steve, and Nat was stabilising the jet. When Eleanor saw that Tony was opening the rear hatch of the jet she took a few steps towards him, "Stark-", she began but was cut off by Steve.
"What are you doing?"
Once the hatch was fully down, a man with long blonde hair, wearing a blue suit that sported a long red cape landed on the open hatch, and stalked his way towards Tony, then proceeded to send him flying backwards by hitting him with a giant hammer.
"Hey buddy-", Eleanor started to speak with her hands raised in the air to show that she wasn't going to be hostile, as she recognised the man to be Thor who was known by SHIELD, but then was cut off by the God grabbing Loki by the throat and jumping off of the jet, "Nevermind".
Nat looked back with pure confusion written on her features, and Eleanor looked back at her with a matching expression. They would normally have been frustrated that their target had been snatched away, but the confusion of how they were snatched away overtook that.
"And now there's that guy", Tony spoke, his voice slightly more muffled than usual due to the helmet, and he started walking towards the hatch again.
"Another Asgardian?", Nat shouted back at the trio who were standing in the middle of the jet.
"That guy's a friendly?", Steve half-shouted.
"Supposed to be", Eleanor jumped into the conversation.
"Doesn't matter, if he frees Loki, or kills them, the Tesseract's lost".
"Stark, we need a plan of attack!", Steve tried to reason with him as he continued walking to the edge of the hatch.
"I have a plan, attack", he then blasted his way out of the jet and started flying towards the ground.
Nat and Eleanor watched Steve start putting on a parachute, aiming to follow Stark. "I'd sit this one out, Cap", Nat shouted back from her seat.
"I don't see how I can".
"These guys come from legend. They're basically Gods", she continued to try and reason, ut to no avail as he was still putting the parachute on.
"There's only one God ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that", he grabbed his shield and ran towards the exit.
"Steve, come on! He has a magic thunder hammer!", Eleanor also tried to reason, but he jumped out of the jet anyway, making her run her hand down her face, groaning.
She closed the hatch and walked back to the co-pilot seat and strapped herself back in, assisting in changing the controls so that they could start their descent to collect the others when they had finished fighting.
"You don't fancy another skydiving adventure then?", Nat smirked at her, referencing how Eleanor had landed in Odessa years ago.
"No, no. I told you I would never do that again and I intend to stick to it".
Nat pouted at her, "Aw, but I really wanna watch you crash land into a tree, I missed it the first time".
"I already fell for you once, Romanoff, it won't be happening again".
"Nice one", Nat laughed at the terrible joke.
Eleanor did a small bow in her seat, "Thank you".
---
Once they were back on the helicarrier, armed guards took Loki off of the group's hands, and headed over to the heavy-duty cell that had been designed for... strong things that may need to be detained.
Steve, Nat, and Eleanor all walked onto the bridge of the helicarrier and took seats at a table that was at the edge of the room, ready to watch Fury start talking to Loki. Bruce had been waiting for them for a couple of minutes and was standing a few paces away from the table instead of sitting with the others, Thor followed suit. Tony had wandered off somewhere, they weren't sure where but the two Agents didn't really care, he wasn't their problem.
Eleanor sat next to Nat cross-legged on a chair. Nat had seated herself first so when she watched her girlfriend get comfy next to her she sent her a soft smile and rested her hand on her knee, to which Eleanor promptly placed her own hand on top of.
The live video footage then began of the cell that Loki was being detained in, so the group put their undivided attention into watching, or in Thor's case listening as he had turned his back to the table.
"In case it's unclear", Fury began as he walked towards the control panel, "If you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass", he pushed a button that opened up the floor below the cell, showing that he could send it plummeting to Earth, "It's 30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?", he then closed the floor up again.
Eleanor looked up at Nat with an eyebrow raised at the fact that the cell could be dropped, but Nat was still staring intently at the screen, so she turned her head back and continued watching.
"Ant. Boot", Fury continued, causing Loki to laugh.
"It's an impressive cage. Not built I think, for me".
"Built for something a lot stronger than you".
"Oh, I've heard", Loki then looked up at the camera, "A mindless beast". Nat and Eleanor both looked up at Bruce briefly with sympathetic expressions, they all knew that Loki was referencing the Hulk. "Makes play that he's still a man, How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?".
"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force that you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun. You've made me very desperate. you might not be glad that you did".
"Ooh. It burns to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share. And then to be reminded what real power is", Loki responded clearly trying to aggravate Fury.
Fury didn't buckle, however, "Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something", he responded whilst walking away from the cell and ultimately out of the room, presumably to come to the bridge.
Eleanor was slightly unnerved when Loki started walking towards the camera, staring at it, trying to intimidate them, and so she let out a tense breath that Nat heard causing her to squeeze her knee a bit. Both women were thinking the same thing, a prisoner shouldn't look relaxed and more than happy to be in there. Loki's entire body language suggested that they thought they were still in control, and Nat and Eleanor didn't like that at all, they hadn't come across someone of Loki's calibre before.
"They really grow on you, don't they?", Bruce joked when the footage ended, causing Eleanor to hum in agreement and slowly nod her head, to which Bruce gave her an awkward shy smile.
"Loki's gonna drag this out", Steve piped up, "So, Thor, what's their play?". They all knew that Steve was correct, Loki wasn't going to just willingly cave and give SHIELD what they want, they are the type of person to play the long game, to make everyone exhaust all of their resources so that Loki would be able to come out of the situation on top. The group couldn't let that happen.
Thor looked deep in thought but turned and responded anyway, "They have an army, called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, nor any world known". Eleanor started rubbing her forehead with the hand that wasn't holding Nat's, when she had joined SHIELD she hadn't been expecting to be up against an alien army. She was good at tracking targets and interrogating perps. An alien army was not within her pay grade.
During Thor's speech, Maria had joined the group, standing a few paces behind the God himself, sharing worried glances with Nat and Eleanor.
"They mean to lead them against your people. The army will win them the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract".
"Great", Eleanor breathed out with a fake smile on her face as she looked at Thor, who tilted his head at her sympathetically.
"An army. From outer space", Steve began whilst looking at Nat, who was just as flabbergasted as the rest of them but continued to have a bit more of a poker face compared to Eleanor who was just straight up showing her exasperation with the situation. It was an alien army for Christ's sake.
"So, they're building another portal. That's what they need Erik Selvig for", Bruce spoke up whilst anxiously playing with his glasses.
Eleanor pursed her lips, that would make sense, but they didn't know how to stop them from building the portal, Loki still had a group of brainwashed people somewhere out there doing their dirty work for them. Eleanor suspected that being locked away with SHIELD was not putting a stop to Loki's plans at all, which wasn't putting her nerves at ease.
"Selvig?", Thor interrupted her train of thought.
"He's an astrophysicist", Bruce responded unaware of Thor's previous relationship with Selvig.
"He's a friend".
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours", Nat spoke for the first time this meeting, and clenched her jaw when she had finished speaking, she didn't like thinking about how Clint was still out there somewhere. Eleanor squeezed her hand and Nat turned to her. She had a blank face but her eyes showed appreciation.
"I want to know why Loki let us take them. They're not leading an army from here", Steve brought the two women's attention back to the meeting.
"No, I think they are, I don't think the people working with Loki", she did quotation marks with her hand at 'with', "Have abandoned ship with their plans because of them being with us, whatever they're planning is still well underway, I'm sure of it". She was met with an uneasy silence, probably because she had just burst a few of their bubbles thinking that they had a bit more safety with Loki detained, "Sorry to bring the mood down", she added sarcastically.
Bruce cleared his throat whilst nodding, showing some form of agreement, "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki, their brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell the crazy on them". Eleanor was about to let out a short laugh but saw Thor take a few steps towards the table and so chewed on the inside of her cheek instead.
"Have care how you speak, Loki is beyond reason, but they are of Asgard, and they are my brother", Thor tried to reason. Eleanor scoffed at him, why should they have to care about how they spoke of Loki, the God has caused so much terror over their brief time of being here.
Nat saw Thor turn his attention to Eleanor when she made a noise of disagreement and quickly swooped in trying to avoid an altercation, Eleanor was tired and when the exhaustion kicks in her filter drops completely. "They killed 80 people in 2 days", Nat stated plainly.
"They're adopted", Thor responded in a smaller voice, clearly uncomfortable with what Natasha had just pointed out to him.
"That makes everything better", Eleanor mumbled in a voice so quiet that only Nat could hear. Nat responded by squeezing her knee, but not in a loving way, she squeezed with her nails in a way that said 'shut the fuck up'. Eleanor quickly froze not realising that she had mumbled that out loud.
"I think it's about the mechanics", Bruce continued his thoughts about the portal theory out loud, "Iridium... what do they need the iridium for?".
"It's a stabilising agent", Stark spoke loudly across the room, entering with Coulson, causing Eleanor to swivel her chair around to face him, breaking the contact with Nat. Nat frowned a little bit at the broken contact but then quickly went back to her neutral expression.
Tony started a quiet conversation with Coulson that they couldn't make out until the Agent walked away from him.
"It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD", walking past Eleanor he gave her a quick pat on the head, ruffling her hair slightly and chuckled at seeing her scowling and turning her chair back around to face the table. When he looked at the woman next to her also scowling at him his eyes widened slightly and he picked up his pace. He wasn't that scared of Eleanor, the two seemed to be developing a relationship of sarcasm and annoying one another in their limited interactions, but he was a tad more scared of her girlfriend.
Getting back to the point, he continued, "No hard feelings Point Break. You've got a mean swing", he then patted Thor's bicep a couple of times when reaching him.
'What is with this guy?', Eleanor thought, but also found it kind of amusing.
"Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants", he reached where Fury would stand and give directions in front of the screens. "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails", he joked, causing some Agents nearby to give him dirty looks".
"That man is playing Galaga!", he pointed at someone across the room, "He thought we wouldn't notice but we did".
Eleanor perked up at this and whipped her head around in the direction of the Agent, "Hey, Galaga dude!", she waved, and the Agent turned around looking confused, "What's your top score?".
Everyone at the table looked at her with expressions that clearly screamed 'what are you doing?', so she turned back to the Agent and gently shook her head sadly.
Tony chuckled slightly before turning back to the screens, and covered up one of his eyes with his hand, "How does Fury even see these".
"He turns", Maria answered blankly.
"Sounds exhausting", he started making his way back to the group.
"The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily". The two women froze a little bit at the second mention of Clint in this meeting. "The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density, something to kick-start the cube".
Eleanor had no clue what was going on anymore but nodded along pretending to be following the conversation. "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?", Maria questioned.
"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers? Am I the only one who did the reading?".
"I don't read, Tony" Eleanor answered sarcastically, earning a snigger from him and Nat.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?", Steve jumped in, clearly not amused with the antics occurring during a serious meeting.
"He would have to heat the cube to 120-million Kelvin just to break the Couloumb barrier", Bruce chimed in.
"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunneling effect", Tony contined whilst walking towards Banner.
'Here we go', Eleanor thought, once again not knowing what the hell was going on.
"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet".
"Finally, someone who speaks English".
"Is that what just happened?", Steve was just as confused as the rest of them.
"It's good to meet you Dr Banner", Tony shook his hand, "Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled, and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into a green-rage monster".
"Thanks", Bruce said unsure of how to take what Tony had just said. Eleanor grimaced at the interaction.
Fury suddenly made a very fast entrance, "Dr Banner is only here to track the cube, I was hoping you might join him".
"I would start with that stick of his. It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon", Steve interjected this time, sharing some of his words of wisdom.
"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube, and I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys".
"Monkeys? I do not understand?", Thor spoke for the first time in a while, clearly not familiar with the Wizard of Oz reference that Fury had thrown into the conversation.
"I do!", Steve excitedly exlaied whilst pointing briefly at Thor, and looking around at the table giving him empty looks, "I understood that reference". Eleanor gave a tiny clap of encouragement.
"Shall we play, Doctor?", Tony spoe at Bruce.
"This way, Sir".
After watching the two scientists leave, Eleanor turned her attention back to the Agent who had been playing Galaga and was about to go over to him to look at his high score but was stopped by Natasha firmly grabbing ahold of her wrist.
"Nuh uh".
"But whyy", Eleanor whined slightly.
"We need a quick power nap if we hope to be of any use so come on, I want at least an hour", Nat spoke whilst quickly waving at the others at the table and dragging her girlfriend out of the room. It was a common thing to do in their industry, if you were in a situation that needed you to be on the go for most of the day, if there was the slightest bit of downtime, you sleep during it.
Eleanor would have tried to resist, but the idea of sleep did seem pretty good, so she let Natasha lead the way, ready to pass out for a while, even if it was only for an hour.