Author's Note: Here's the first chapter in our new story, Love is a Dangerous Distraction! Let us know what you think and, as always, anything you recognize belongs to Marvel!


The party sucked. Not the music, or the location, just the social aspect. The game of spin the bottle was rapidly deteriorating into an excuse for the couples at the party to make out. The amount of saliva exchanged within the room was vomit inducing. Two girls sat next to each other on the sofa, talking quietly. No one seemed to notice as they observed the room and spoke to each other in hushed tones. They seemed to be the oddities in the room, the brunette with her near transparent grey eyes and the blonde who had kept her fists firmly clenched for a large portion of the evening. Their body language screamed awkwardness as they sat side by side but no one was sober enough to observe the pair.

"Did you put the plates in the sink after dinner?" The brunette raised her eyebrow at the blonde.

"You know I couldn't," The blonde replied. "Eloise, you know I was working on an experiment in the sink earlier. I can't mess this up!"

"Like you messed up my history papers on Thursday, Cass? Don't think I didn't see the tipex marks."

There was a moment of silence until Eloise spoke again. "You've got to be in early at work tomorrow, so we need to leave soon."

"Finally." Cass got out her phone as it vibrated in her pocket. "I just got a message from James. We're looking at biological tech engineering tomorrow so I need to get some sleep tonight."

The girls were about to get up when there was a loud knock at the door. Unless someone ordered a pizza, all the guests had arrived. Hadn't they? They both simultaneously looked at each other with a questioning glance and a confused look on their face. The blonde got up and glanced around the room.

"Well I guess since we're the only ones sober…" She didn't need to finish her sentence as the brunette also stood and made her way across to door. As they battled their way through the crowd, they saw the owner of the house, Olivia flounce over to the door, followed by a rather drunk looking boy. The girls quickly made their way over to the other pair but stopped as soon as they can within 5 metres. They could save the drunks from humiliation if need be but could also laugh at their incoherent babbling. They watched, intrigued as Olivia (a friend of a friend) opened the door to reveal a tall man, wearing an eye patch. The drunken girl smiled and said with a slightly slurred tone, "Look it's a pirate."

The man looked at them, unamused, and replied, "I'm looking for Cassandra Richardson and Eloise Hunter." The aforementioned girls glanced at each other. Who is this guy?

"No can do, buddy." The intoxicated guy slapped the unamused man on the chest.

"I don't think you quite understand," The man in black took a step over the threshold of the house. "It's urgent." The brunette, Eloise, stepped forward, putting herself between the drunks and the mysterious guy. She couldn't deal with a fight tonight, especially when her flat mate was around and had a tendency to get involved in the occasional violent dispute.

"Miss. Hunter, I need you and Miss. Richardson to come with me." The man in black spoke with a tone of authority.

"Back off, Patchy." The drunken guy said, tripping slightly onto the arm of the girl.

"Yeah, get out of my house, paedo!" She glared at him in drunken anger.

"As I said, I just need to talk to Miss. Richardson and Miss. Hunter. This doesn't concern you." The man looked directly at the pair with a strange look in his eye.

"Back off!" The drunken man pushed the man in black in the chest with considerable force, causing him to stumble back a pace but nevertheless he held his ground. Eloise waved off the drunken pair and looked at the man in question.

"What do you want us for?" She looked up at him without an ounce of fear in her eyes.

"It's top secret. Could we take this outside?" The man gestured towards the open door and walked out without looking back. Eloise turned to follow but Cass grabbed her arm.

"Top secret?" She said raising her eyebrows "Are you seriously buying that?" Eloise took a moment to consider.

"Look, lets just see what he wants and if it's nothing important then we can just head home." Cass nodded in agreement.

"And get a take away?" She added, eyeing the untouched party food through the kitchen door.

"Agreed." Eloise replied. As Cass turned to follow her friend, she felt a wave of nervousness...this man, he couldn't possibly know about, her...affliction, could he? She'd managed to keep it a close-guarded secret, so it was impossible for him to know anything. With a slight feeling of reassurance, she pushed the thought aside and followed her friend. Eloise heard her friend's footsteps behind her and followed the mysterious man until he stopped; back still turned, in the middle of Olivia's garden. Cass caught up quickly and they waited in silence for the man to say something. The summer breeze was blowing lightly and Cass quickly checked her phone for the time. It was quarter past 10.

"My name is Nick Fury," The man turned around abruptly and looked down at the two girls with a piercing gaze. "I am the Director of an organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D and we need your help." Eloise's brow furrowed at his words and Cass raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"What do you need both of our help with?" Cass spoke with confidence despite the Fury's tone of authority. He brought out two folders from within his black trench coat and handed one to each girl.

"An object known as the Tesseract has been stolen by a hostile force and we need your help getting it back." He gripped his hands behind his back. "This is a matter of war." He was about to speak again when he was cut off.

"Why do you need us?" Eloise finally spoke. Fury smirked grimly.

"We've been tracking you both since a young age, Miss. Hunter. We know all about your abilities and that is why we need you."

"Do we get any say in this?" Cass crossed her arms in front of her in a defensive manner.

"I'm afraid not." Eloise was about to protest. "But as soon as we find the cube, we'll send you straight back home. No funny business." He said finitely. Cass sighed and exchanged a look with her friend.

"When are we going?" She asked Fury. He nodded his head towards the blacked out car sitting close by.

"We need you now."


The two girls arrived within 10 minutes at their house in Stoke Newington thanks to Fury's maniac driver and the lack of traffic on the streets. They'd been told to pack for at least a few weeks any essentials they would need. Eloise was standing in the bathroom packing two separate toiletry bags, whilst Cass was yelling through which books they'd want to take with them.

"All the Harry Potter's?" Cass shouted as she juggled all seven books into Eloise's purple suitcase.

"Well, you insist on taking all three types of defrizzing conditioner, so stop complaining!" Eloise replied grabbing her friend's bag and throwing it out of the bathroom in her general direction. That was met with a 'ouch' and a loud bang. She walked out of the bathroom and saw it was 10:40pm.

"Shit, we have 5 minutes to get out of these clothes." She sped off down the landing towards her bedroom and Cass mirrored her, only turning to the right.

"Cass, what are you wearing?" Eloise said as she sifted through her wardrobe.

"Grey vest top, black hoodie and blue cut-off trakkies!" Muffled grumbling followed that. Eloise carefully discarded her black lace dress and put on a plain white ¾ sleeve top and tight khaki-coloured jean-trousers, followed by a chunky brown cardigan and fluffy brown uggs.

"You ready?" Eloise called through to Cass, who was putting her hair up in a loose ponytail. She grabbed her hoodie as she ran through the doorway and down the stairs.

"Did you pack my book on the Holy War?" Eloise's voice came from upstairs.

"Yes, just like you told me." Cass zipped up her blue suitcase and dragged it through, near the doorway. There was a series of loud thumps as Eloise threw her suitcase down the stairs. She followed it seconds after in a more graceful manner.

"I hope there's nothing breakable in there.' She mumbled tying her cardigan. They stood side by side as they looked in the mirror.

"We don't look too bad, right?" She ran her fingers threw her wavy, chest-length hair and wiped off the smudges of black eyeliner. Cass smoothed out her wild blonde curls and threw a beige beanie on top of her shoulder-length hair.

"I look awful." She sighed and shrugged on her hoodie. Eloise raised an eyebrow in her direction as she opened the door.

"You look perfectly fine, Cass." She turned and was met by two men.

"Are you ready to leave?" The one on the left said monotonously.

"Yes, we'll just get out bags." The girls went to move but the man waved them off.

"We'll get them for you." They shimmied past the girls and grabbed a suitcase each like it weighed as much as a feather. Following the men, they shut their door and made their way into the blacked-out car that would drive them to Heathrow Airport. Once inside the car, they picked up their folders and saw that Director Fury was not inside.

"Probably gone ahead?" Cass suggested as she pulled out a piece of paper on the Tesseract. Eloise joined suit but stopped as she saw the name.

"Loki?"

"Huh?"

"It's says Loki is the hostile force. As in Loki, Prince of Asgard, God of mischief and lies."

"Asgard?" Cass skim-read over the file. "That sounds like a nightclub." Eloise snorted quietly and looked through the personal files. She fell silent for moment and Cass looked over at her with concern.

"You stopped talking, what have you read?"

"It says they've found Captain America." Eloise read the long passage and then said, "He still looks like he did in the 1940's." Cass turned to the page in her own folder and read over his procedure. Her eyes flickered towards her friend and then back at the page.

"This sounds like…" She trailed off and gave her friend a concerned glance. "Your procedure…it sounds like…"

"Spit it out already, Cass." Eloise said coldly.

"Maybe he could-"

"Don't say what you're going to. I doubt he'd want to talk about his past any more than I'd want to."

"I'm sorry." She patted her friend on the shoulder and changed the subject. "So all these Norse myths are actually true?"

"Apparently so." Eloise flipped past another page. "Thor's profile is here as well." Cass gave her a blank look. "Thor is Loki's brother and the God of thunder. Surely you've heard of him?" Cass scoffed.

"Not all of us work in a museum!"

"No, you work in a university lab, genius."

"Which is why I'm helping Banner!" Cass picked up his sheet of paper and raised an eyebrow as she saw a picture of the Hulk smashing up Harlem.

"Another scientist with anger issues? You two are a match made in heaven." Eloise smirked and ducked away as Cass hit her with the folder.

"Come on, we've got a plane to catch." Eloise said, spotting the airport out of the window.

"And some fellow freaks to meet." Cass replied with a twinkle in her eyes.


Authors Note: Thanks for reading! Any reviews/suggestions are much appreciated! A & C x