And it really did.

"Yeah," Autumn replied. "That's pretty much it, isn't it?"

"It really is." Alexis grinned.

Coulson didn't even bother to deny it. He just smiled faintly and kept an eye on everyone.

Autumn slowly relaxed, sinking into one of the chairs. Her leg was throbbing a bit, and she grimaced.

After a bit, Alexis glanced at Fury.

"So are we staying airborne for a while or are we headed somewhere?"

"For now, we're staying up here," Fury said. "Once things settle out some, then we can chance the ground again."

Alexis nodded and decided that would be a good thing to tell Tony.

We're up in the air for a while, tell Steve and Bruce for me. Any other earth-shattering discoveries yet?

SHIELD is only so much scrap at this point. Totally done, gone, nothing left to build on. And I'll have you know the government's come knocking twice already, and neither time was my fault. Tony was already working on wiping as much SHIELD data as he could. He knew about Natasha's infodump plan, and he needed to make sure nothing that would hurt them made it to the wild internet.

I'm sorry you have to deal with them by yourself, but you seem to have done fine so far. Alexis paused there for a moment. Let me know if you need anything. I'm stuck on a plane until Fury decides it's safe-ish to land, but I'll see what I can do to help.

We're good here for now. Not that Tony was in the habit of admitting when he needed help, but for the moment things really were well enough in hand.

Alexis was going to trust his judgment on that for now (although she did text Bruce too just to be sure) and then settled back. Nothing to do for now but wait.

Autumn, meanwhile, had wandered her way down to the science lab. She was interested to see what was on the Bus. When she got there, she paused.

"Of course Coulson is given FitzSimmons, why not?" she muttered.

Ward looked over at her. "He got to put together the team he wanted," he said with a little shrug. "Helps that we've been away from the rest of SHIELD."

Autumn didn't jump, but it was a near thing.

"Don't do that," she said, turning around. "After the day we just had, sneaking up on people will get you shot."

Ward just shot her a brief grin. "I didn't sneak, you just didn't hear me," he said with a shrug.

"Same thing," Autumn replied. She looked around. "Nice place. You guys stay here all the time, on the jet?"

Ward nodded. "Pretty much. Makes things easier when we have to go half-way around the world on short notice."

"No kidding," Autumn said. "Though I have to admit, I do prefer my own assets." She was definitely most comfortable with the X-Men.

"That's normal, from what I understand," Ward said. "It's weird to be working with other people now."

"I'm used to being a solo agent," Autumn said. "I liaise with the X-Men."

Ward nodded. "I heard," he said. "How does that work out for you?"

"Works out fine," Autumn said. "Extenuating circumstances aside." She rattled her crutch a little bit.

Ward snorted. "Job hazard," he said feelingly. "Gunshot, broken bone, or torn ligament?"

"Gunshot," Autumn replied. "My own weapon, even. Still hurts like a bitch."

Ward made a sympathetic face. "Gunshots hurt for a while," he agreed. "They're always brutal."

"No kidding," Autumn replied. She resettled herself on her crutch. "I'll have a nice pretty scar, too."