Alice dunked the delicate ginger cookie into her tea, letting the warm liquid sink into the crisp and spicy wafer before taking it out, taking a polite nibble on the softened edge.

Taking a napkin, she delicately patted her lips, before looking up at the grinning figure across the table. "If you're not going to partake in afternoon tea you might as well leave. I have no use for stale cakes and sandwiches."

Cheshire chuckled, flashing his fangs as his ears twitched. "Oh but I do enjoy your parties so. They are such…..lively affairs." He purred, glancing around the empty apartment, only the two of them filling the seats at Alice's table.

Alice's pursed in irritation. "That is hardly my fault Cat. I am still on probation. Many of my acquaintances are away on business or otherwise. And I am hardly in the mood for having crockery launched at my skull." She muttered. Hatter's parties were always much more chaotic than she felt was comfortable, the madman threatening bodily harm to anyone with poor manners and poorly wound clocks. Mad hallucinations indeed.

"Hatter does have a way with setting his guests off their tea doesn't he?" Cheshire grinned, before leaning down to take a small lap from the bowl of cream in front of him.

A soft, firm knock reached their ears, and Cheshire chuckled at Alice's surprised expression. "I wasn't expecting anyone at this hour…." She murmured, looking up at the grandfather clock, ticking past five thirty one.

"As they say Alice, two is company, but three is a crowd. I take my leave…." Cheshire said, fading away, nothing but the bowl of cream leaving a sign of his being there.

Alice stood, lightly brushing off her apron of any crumbs from her dainty meal, before moving over to the door, peering through the peephole to see one of the many agents she had seen upon awakening from her 'sleep'.

She cracked open the door, peering under the chain blocking the agent entry.

"Hello Miss Liddell. My name is Agent Coulson. You may not remember me, but I was there when you woke up from your coma." The Agent greeted, grey blue eyes meeting sharp green. "I need to talk about you about a situation regarding the Avengers Initiative. May I come in?"

Alice's eyes narrowed, and after a brief glance up and down of the man, unlocked the door, backing out of the way so he could enter.

The man entered, taking a cursory glance of the apartment, his gaze landing on the bowl of milk set across from Alice's teacup.

"Would you like to stay for tea?" She asked, if only out of manners towards the agent as she pushed the door closed after him.

"No, thank you. I appreciate the offer but I have to leave here once I'm finished dropping the message off to you." He pulled out a folder, holding it out for the young woman to take. "Before you went into your coma, did you ever hear of a weapon called the tesseract?" He asked, as Alice took the folder from his hand.

"No." She said simply, before pulling out the folder, glancing down at the photo of the cube, along with a description of it's history. "Should I have?"

"It was a weapon found and used in the second World War, by a group known at the time as HYDRA. It vanished in the arctic with Captain America, and was found 4 years after his disappearance. SHIELD took custody of it and was attempting to use it for clean energy." If he noticed the way Alice's eyebrows furrowed at the unfamiliar phrase, he didn't respond to it. "24 hours ago, a portal was created through the tesseract, and was taken. We're going to need all hands on deck to retrieve it."

Alice was silent, the quiet shuffling of the papers the only thing breaking the silence. Then she looked up at the Agent. "Where shall we begin?"