Anna hovered around the cake, checking if it had cooled enough to be iced. Her eyebrows knitted together as she pondered over how much longer she would have to wait. She soon calculated that by the time she had finished making the icing, the cake would be ready. As she always said: baking was as much a science as it was an art.

Immediately, Anna moved on to search for the necessary ingredients. She ducked down to the cupboard and squinted at the contents. Good Lord, she needed some new organisational skills. After a minute or two of rummaging, Anna found her ingredients. She cringed at how long it took her to find them and told herself to re-shift her cupboards. Although, based on it's current state, it was painfully obvious to her that she wouldn't. Sighing slightly, she rose from her crouched position and smoothed out her apron.

Soon enough, Anna fell back into the familiar routine of making the cake icing. She used to do this most weekends, but work had quickly gotten in the way and shot that horse in the face. Yes, part of her loved her job more than anything. Not everyone was able to do what they loved and specialised in. She counted herself very lucky in that respect. And it wasn't like she could call the job boring; it was hardly the average office job or desk duty she's hear many others complain about. But that was the exact problem. It certainly wasn't a normal job where she could go home every night to a nice loving family and discuss the days work. It was more of a ' I would tell you, but then I'd have to kill you' type of deal. This is why she was so grateful for her three week break.

Now that she thought about it, she only had one week left.

"And I'm damn well going to enjoy it," she decided out loud, "I'm going to relish in the fact that everyone else has to spend the next week with The One Eyed Wonder, while I'm doing whatever the hell I want." With a final nod of determination, Anna carried on with her mixing.

She hummed in appreciation, and decided that the icing was ready for the cake. She reached over for a spatula when something glinted in the corner of her eye. Whipping her head around to the window, she was met with the sight of a black car, with windows far too dark to be legal, pulling up in her driveway. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of the annoyingly familiar SHIELD logo on the side.

"The hell are they playing at…" She muttered angrily. Roughly, Anna pushed herself away from her kitchen unit and stomped towards the door. She paused for a moment as she tried to collect herself. There was no way she could just take out her frustration on whatever poor bastard they'd sent her. For all she knew, he/she could just be a new recruit. Scaring them off was, in the eye of Nick Fury, bad for business. Apparently, he didn't care how fun it was to mess with them. She could, however, somewhat understand why standing in the elevator with them, singling one out to stare at and loudly announcing 'YOU'RE ONE OF THEM' could freak them out. Especially when you factor in the small fact that they work for SHIELD.

Once Anna had finally gathered her bearings, she opened the door. The man on the other side was in the process of knocking and quickly lowered his hand before taking off his sunglasses to focus on Anna.

"Fitzgerald." He nodded his head in recognition.

"Coulson." Anna bit out. Okay, so it wasn't a new recruit; it was Phil Coulson. Now she didn't have to worry about what she said.

He squinted his eyes at her and she saw them twinkle slightly. "Nice apron," he nodded towards it and smirked, "teddy bears really bring out your eyes."

"Just for that, you're not getting a piece of cake." Anna didn't miss a beat as she narrowed her eyes at the agent.

"That's alright. It'll just go straight to my hips." He replied, completely straight faced. Anna couldn't keep up the act anymore and broke into a wide grin. She couldn't deny that she'd missed working with the slightly snarky agent. He grinned back and she was glad, because he must have missed her too.

"Come on in then," Anna gestured to the inside of her home, "I'll get you a coffee. I remember how you take it."

He thanked her and followed her inside. Anna showed him to the kitchen and told him he could sit at the breakfast bar. The cake she had mentioned previously was in front of him, along with the bowl of freshly made icing. Phil wondered if she'd put it there on purpose. He wasn't too bothered by the thought of it before, but now that it was there, and Anna was making him coffee, the cake seemed much more tempting. From the look and smell of it, it was definitely chocolate. He knew how well it would go with his coffee and silently hoped that Anna would see the light of reason.

While Phil was thinking about how he hadn't had lunch yet, Anna had already made him his coffee and placed it in front of him. She quickly moved back to her task of covering the cake in icing. If Phil asked if she was doing it deliberately to annoy him, she would deny it. Of course, she'd be lying then.

"So," Anna looked at Phil as he sipped his coffee, "I'm just taking a wild stab in the dark here, but I'm assuming this isn't just a social visit. Am I right?" She focused her attention on the cake now, because, as much as she hated it, she already knew what the answer would be.

"No, you're right about that." He said it so casually, as if her were talking about the weather. Anna felt her jaw tighten at that.

"Then what?" She questioned, tersely.

She watched as Phil put down his coffee. His face had changed to a more sombre expression and Anna's rage subsided. He sighed, running his fingers through his hair, he could feel it thinning with all the stress he was under.

"Do you remember working with the Tesseract?" Phil's tone was grave as he talked to Anna. She remembered the Tesseract, there was no way she could forget the pure energy, and absolute power it held. It was, however, only briefly that she had worked with it. Most of her work was checking it's compatibility and similarity to SHIELD's current weapons arsenal. If other races used Tesseract based weaponry, then SHIELD would make absolutely sure that the Earth was by no means out gunned.

All Anna could do was nod in response. She dreaded Phil's next words. In her mind, the Tesseract was dangerous and there was a reason for it not being Earth born.

"Last night, there was," he considered his words for a moment, but continued anyway, "let's just say a problem. To be honest with you, Anna, even we're not completely sure how it happened." He took another gulp of his coffee and launched back into his speech. "With the help of Dr Selvig, we discovered that the Tesseract has the ability to open portals."

"But portals can be opened from more than one side…" Anna interrupted, suddenly understanding.

"Exactly. Late last night, the Tesseract started giving off some odd energy signatures. Selvig said that it was misbehaving and he and his team tried to calm it down. As you can probably tell from me being here, it didn't work." Phil stopped his explanation to take another drink of his coffee, only to find that there was none left. He didn't even have to ask for more; Anna had already handed him another mug of the steaming liquid. "Thanks, I really needed this." He meant that, and he was honestly thankful. It wasn't like he could get decent coffee at SHIELD. Anna nodded in understanding.

"So, let me see if I've got this right," Anna took in a breath trough her nose and licked her lips, "Some alien decided to hitch a ride on Tesseract energy and is now running around on Earth?"

Phil snorted into his coffee. "That's the nice, simple way to put it."

Anna looked at him carefully. "What's the bad, complicated way, then?

"First, replace alien with God," Anna looked at him as if the coffee she'd given him was drugged, "No, I'm serious. Remember Thor?" He waited for an answer.

"Ummm, yeah. Giant dude with Goldilocks hair and a hammer fetish, right? Dressed like something out of a fantasy book?" She knew that she was avoiding the elephant in the room here, and that she couldn't do it for much longer.

"Yeah, just so happens to share a name with a very well known Norse God." Phil also knew what she was doing, and definitely wasn't going to let her. He raised his eyebrows at her and she sighed dramatically.

"Fine. I get it, we have a lost little God wandering around, what are we going to do about it?" Phil kept his eyebrows raised at her. "What? Have I missed something?"

"He's not just some "lost little God", Phil glared at Anna and she shrunk slightly, "he came through that portal, either killed or took most of our agents in there, stole the Tesseract, and Barton-" he stopped to take a breath and compose himself, before he went too far. He'd had more than just a rough night, and it showed.

"What about Barton?" Anna asked, she felt as if she were walking on eggshells.

"Barton's been compromised." Phil spoke, and took another swig of his coffee. Damn, that cake was looking even better right now.

"Does Natasha know?" She said it quietly, as if it were a taboo subject. In some ways, it was, she thought.

"Yes. I called her earlier and she's in."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Phil was waiting for Anna to respond, while she was still trying to digest all the knew information. How the hell could Barton, of all people, be compromised? He was one of SHIELD's best. He wouldn't just go off because he was asked nicely, even if he were threatened, he would find a way around it. Either that, or stick an arrow between the person's eyes. There was no way he could be in his right mind to go off with what could be assumed to be an enemy. Anna knew there had to be something more to this, and this new enemy had to be planning something.

"I'm in." She broke the silence and Phil snapped his head up.

"What?"

"You heard me, Phil. I'll come back a week early," She regarded him seriously as she continued, "but I fully expect to get at least two more off after all this blows over." She looked him in the eye, with a raised eyebrow and waited for a reply.

"Absolutely, I'll put in a good word with Fury." They both smiled at that. At the end of the day, they were still working people who would do anything for a day off.

Phil and Anna both drank some more coffee and chatted for a while. They mostly just talked about what she'd missed during her time off, occasionally making a joke about Fury being a pirate in a past life. Apparently Phil had spent some time working with Tony Stark. Anna felt sorry for the poor guy as she knew what it was like to work for that asshole. But she wasn't there anymore, and there was no point dwelling on the past.

They also briefly discussed this deranged God that came through the Tesseract. Apparently he was set on subjugation of the entire human race and setting them 'free from freedom'. Anna had snorted at that. World domination was so clichéd, in her opinion.

Soon enough, Phil had to leave and Anna felt slightly deflated at that. As much as she'd hate to admit it, he was a good friend and she hadn't really talked to anyone on her break. It made a nice change. But she remembered that, as of tomorrow, she'd be back working for SHIELD. The way she saw it, it was a good thing and a bad thing. It was good, because she'd be back to saving the world, and she'd actually have people to talk to. It was also, however, bad because she wouldn't be able to bake again for a while.

Anna watched Phil walking to his car when a thought suddenly struck her. He was most definitely having a bad week, last night alone was enough to send most people running for the hills. Phil needed a pick me up, no matter how small, and Anna knew just the thing. Quickly, she dashed back to her kitchen and emerged with a box. She ran down her hallway and out the door, making her way to the car.

"Hey! Phil!" Anna knocked impatiently on the window, balancing the box on one hand.

The window rolled down and Phil fixed her with an exasperated glare. His gaze switched from Anna, to the box, and back to Anna again. He raised an eyebrow at her in a question.

"Well, I thought that since I said that you couldn't have a piece of cake," she presented him with the box, "I could just give you the whole thing."

Hey! Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

This will be my first Avengers fic, and I hope I've done well. Please read and review! Any ideas you have for me will be appreciated!

- Callie