A/N: Thank you to everyone who took the time to review! :) And also for all of the follows/favorites. Hope you all continue to enjoy the story.

Blah blah blah. No own Marvel/Avengers.

On with ze show!

chapter four:

Amrita sat in the middle of the floor of her relatively small room, all of the minimal furniture having been pushed to the far reaches of the room to make way for her morning routine. She sat with her legs in a pretzel-reminiscent pose, her back perfectly straight as she closed her eyes, focusing on slowing and steadying her breathing. Once she had done that, she unfurled herself slowly to stand on her feet, beginning her morning yoga routine: the sun salute. She moved with a practiced ease through the different stretches, something that she had done every morning since she had begun to practice yoga in her past life. The routine was something that she had carried over with her to her new life, another constant that she wished to keep despite how much she had changed in her resurrection. The only sound was her deep, steady breathing and the occasional quiet chiming of her silver charm bracelet as she moved.

As she completed her sixth repetition of the sun salute, she sank down to the floor once more, laying herself down in a dead man's pose and focusing on feeling each part of her body, ignoring the pull of tiredness as it began to sink in. She supposed she'd need another cup of coffee if she were to make it through the day without falling asleep on the job.

Slowly, Amrita pulled herself back to alertness and blinked her eyes open before rolling up into a sitting position again, looking around her room and noting the suitcase of a few or her belongings that Natasha had brought with them from her house when they'd left. She sighed, not really feeling prepared for whatever the day might bring due to her tiredness, but supposed she would just have to tough it out. Hauling herself to her feet, she grabbed the suitcase and lugged it into the postage-stamp sized bathroom with her before opening it. She took out her toothbrush and toothpaste, placing them beside the sink along with her comb and ponytail holder before sorting through the four sets of clothing that had been packed in the suitcase, along with undergarments: One formal sari, one plain sari, one somewhat fancy salwar kameez, and a casual kurta and churidar pants. She frowned, realizing she would need more plain-but-professional clothing to work in. Perhaps she would ask Natasha or Agent Vale where she could procure some. She tossed on fresh undergarments before putting on the plain, beige-colored sari with red edging, slipping on a pair of sandals and diving into her hygiene routine to make herself presentable despite her lack of sleep. It was a shame she didn't have any makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes, she thought. She had to settle for just splashing cold water on her face to try and make herself more alert. She had a feeling she'd be doing that more than once during the day.

Thanks to the handy directions Bruce had been kind enough to scrawl on a scrap of paper he'd had on him, she managed to find her way to the cafeteria and grab a coffee before she headed to her clinic without having to ask anyone for directions. Not that that would have been quite as big a problem as it had been last time she'd gotten lost, as now that it was just past seven o'clock in the morning, the residents of the helicarrier seemed to be all waking up, ready to start the day. Too bad she just felt like crawling into bed.

Today is going to be absolute torture, she thought somberly as she entered her clinic, downing a large gulp of her coffee and nearly burning her tongue. She grimaced, setting the to-go cup down and vowing to let it cool a bit more before she made her morning any worse than it had to be. She glanced around the room and spotted a crisply-ironed white lab coat laid out on the examination table for her. She chewed the inside of her cheek, déjà vu washing over her as she grabbed it and put it on. It had been a long time, objectively speaking, since she'd worn one of these.

Amrita had just finished taking a quick inventory on the placement of all the supplies in the clinic by eight o'clock, when Director Fury walked in promptly as the clock struck the hour.

"Doctor," he said by way of greeting. She started, unaware that he had dredged up her credentials from her past life. She supposed that SHIELD must have known more than they'd shown her in her file, as they'd addressed the fact that they knew she'd changed her face before. She was a bit miffed that they knew so much. It would make disappearing once this whole earth-in-danger fiasco was over all that much harder.

"Couldn't sleep last night?"

Amrita raised an eyebrow, wondering how he knew, but then spotted slight movement in the shadowed top corner of the room, realizing there must be cameras everywhere on the helicarrier for security reasons. Unfortunately, the thought failed to make her feel any safer.

"No, sir," she said. "Also, in regards to my 'escapades' last night, I believe it would do me well if I could have a map with all the important rooms of the helicarrier marked on it."

Fury nodded. "I'll have Agent Vale bring one down for you later," he said. "Have a nice day, doctor. I'll check in with you later to see how things are going."

Amrita nodded, eager for him to move along so she could reorganize things. There were some supplies that were in places that just didn't make sense to her, and she hated working in a space that wasn't properly organized to her liking. It had been the same last time she had worked as a fully licensed doctor.

Fury swept from the room with a swoosh of his trench coat, which Amrita found somewhat amusing.

With that, her hectic day began.

The day started slow enough, but after nine o'clock, it seemed like there was a never-ending stream of minor injuries passing through her clinic. Joint dislocations, sprains, and scrapes from training that just needed to be taken note of for their employee files so that they could be kept track of. Apparently before she'd come on board, they just had a nurse to treat the injuries. The nurse was still on board, but she learned from one of her chattier patients that once the agents had heard there was a new doctor on board, they all wanted to check it out, so most of the agents that had injuries were coming to her instead to see what the new doctor was like. She rolled her eyes at that, hoping that they would find their curiosity sated sooner rather than later, seeing as this was not to be her 'official' role with SHIELD. She kept her lips shut about that, however, as Fury had mentioned to her after her recruitment that the team he had scoped her out for was not public knowledge, even on the helicarrier.

There were a couple of more 'interesting' injuries, though, one of them being a male agent with second-degree burns on his buttocks. Apparently his partner had literally lit a fire under his ass when he hadn't been training hard enough.

Amrita was never gladder to go get food than she was during her lunch break. She had posted a sign on her door for any injuries requiring immediate attention to go to the nurse, whose schedule Fury had provided for her so that they could stagger lunch breaks to maximize efficiency. Being sprung back into the role of doctor had been exhausting not only physically, but mentally. She had been forced to see male patients as well as female; health care did not cater to personal phobias of one gender or the other. She felt she had done well, as she had been able to assume a cool, detached demeanor in order to get through visits by male patients without letting on about her discomfort so that she could provide proper care, but adding that mental taxation on top of her sleepless night did not help her mental alertness. She felt like at that point, she might just need to fill an IV bag full of coffee and hook it up to her arm just to make it through the rest of the day.

Amrita was about halfway through her second cup of coffee during her lunch break before she remembered that Bruce hadn't slept last night, either. She hadn't seen him in the cafeteria when she'd come in, either, so she didn't know if he had even thought to come down for food yet. He struck her as the type of person who got so immersed in his work that he forgot to take care of himself. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she quickly made up her mind and grabbed a to-go cup of coffee and an apple before heading back a few minutes early, passing her clinic door to the glass wall of the lab next door and rapping on it just as she had in the wee hours of the morning. She got the same response, too; Bruce whipped his head up from the machine he'd been working away at and fixed his glasses that had slipped down the bridge of his nose. He spotted her and gave a slight smile, waving her in. She tucked the apple she was holding into her coat pocket so that she had one hand free to open the lab door. She shut it gently behind her, looking around at all the high-tech equipment all around and thanking the stars her clinic was not like that. It was likely because they knew the last time she'd been a doctor there had been very little technology to work with, but her clinic was virtually tech-free. It probably wasn't the same in the nurse's clinic, she thought as she crossed the room to where Bruce was sitting, typing away on a computer. She placed the coffee down on the table, pushing it towards him, making sure not to spill, and then placed the apple down beside it. She still didn't stand very close to him despite their tentative camaraderie.

Bruce glanced over and paused in his typing as he noticed the gifts she'd brought. He looked between them and her with a confused look on his face.

"What, what's this?" he asked, almost sounding amused.

Amrita shrugged, suddenly finding the air vent at the end of the room a very fascinating thing to study as she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her lab coat.

"I wasn't sure if you had eaten yet," she said by way of explanation. "Plus I was aware that you hadn't slept last night, either, so I felt you could use the caffeine."

She glanced over just in time to catch Bruce's smile.

"Oh. Thanks," he said, sounding genuine. He reached for the coffee and took a sip, his smile growing. "That's one good thing about this place, I guess. They always keep the coffee fresh."

Amrita smiled before glancing at the clock by the door, realizing she only had one minute left of her lunch break.

"Sorry to dash, but my lunch break is over in less than sixty seconds, so…" she trailed off.

"No, no, that's okay," Bruce reassured her. "Thanks for bringing this for me. I haven't had a chance to grab something to eat yet, so I appreciate it."

Amrita raised a challenging eyebrow.

"If you expect us to be friends, you're going to have to take better care of yourself. I'd take it personally if you ended up in my clinic due to starvation. I'd think you were doing it to spite me," she joked with a straight face.

Bruce placed a hand over his heart. "I'm hurt you would think such a thing. Even if it were true, I would be a lot less obvious than that," he joked back.

She laughed and turned to leave, waving back at him over her shoulder as she returned to her clinic. She sighed as she entered the familiar room once again with eight seconds to spare, taking the sign off her door and placing it in an appropriate drawer to use again at a later date. It wasn't even five minutes before her next patient strode through her doors, and the afternoon became a steady stream of patients as well.

After the clock struck four, she found herself glancing at the clock much more than seemed healthy to her. She was antsy and ready to be out of there already, and she was surprised when fifteen minutes before her shift was over, Director Fury strode through the door, grabbing her sign from where she'd stashed it and placing it outside the door, drawing down the shade over the door's window. She was more miffed at the fact that he'd obviously been watching her on the security camera(s) than confused as to his presence there. After all, he had said that he would check on her later. He turned back to her and nodded in greeting, not even giving her a verbal greeting.

So good to see he's getting comfortable with me, she thought sarcastically.

"We're going to need you on standby tonight," he said without preamble.

She barely suppressed an audible groan, but she could feel her shoulders slump at the implication that she would not simply be able to go back to her room and go straight to sleep for the night.

"Oh?" she said wearily, not really caring why she needed to be on standby, just that she had to be on standby and that she did not want to be on standby.

Fury raised an eyebrow at her depressed state. "Don't worry, you can fit in a couple hours sleep before we expect to need you. We'll page you once you're needed," he said, nodding to the pager clipped to the neckline of her sari. She'd almost forgotten about the thing because it hadn't notified her of diddly squat yet. She guessed that was because she'd been in her clinic all day, though.

"Let me clarify how this standby will work. Every other night, you and our resident nurse will switch responsibility for being on call. If it's a crisis, we'll page both of you, but other than that, you'll have every other night to yourself," he said, and Amrita brightened a bit at that, though not much, seeing as tonight was the one time she felt she really needed to sleep and she wouldn't be able to get more than a nap in before she'd be required back here. Fury noted the lack of enthusiasm in response to his statement and continued, "Tonight however, we need you specifically on call. Remember that team I wanted you to be part of?" he asked.

Amrita nodded wordlessly.

"This is team business. We're sending one of our operatives out. Minutes ago, Doctor Banner traced the location of an item we've been tracking. The item that's the reason the world is currently in peril," he explained, watching Amrita's eyes light up in understanding. "It's being wielded by a power-hungry god. I don't see us capturing him without a fight."

Amrita took in this news with a sense of grim acceptance. So in other words, tonight might be really bad, she thought. And that would be why they needed her, specifically, on standby that night.

"In that case, Director," she said, "I would appreciate it if I could clock out a few minutes early… I believe I should get as much rest as possible before you need me." She glanced at the clock, which read four forty-nine. "Do you have an ETA for when they'll be back?"

Fury nodded. "If all goes well, they should be back by twenty-hundred hours," he said, his expression softening ever-so-slightly. Or perhaps it was just her eyes playing tricks on her. "Go get some rest, Rita."

"Thank you, sir," she said, with no small amount of relief, before shucking her lab coat, hanging it up and skittering off to her bed with an almost euphoric feeling.

Even three hours sleep would be better than what she was running on now.