Hello. I've been planning this for a while but only recently got round to writing it. The title is pending as I'm not sure it's quite right, so any feedback would be greatly received.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters aside from my own OC. The rights of the other characters belong to Marvel and its affiliates.

Enjoy and please review or PM me or something so I know if to continue/ what people think of my OC.

Coraline Quinn had never been in a Walmart before.

Not that that should be considered all that surprising, considering that a little under 6 hours ago she had never set foot on US soil either.

Sighing, she coaxed her trolley over the threshold of the supermarket, before mentally chiding herself. It was shopping cart not trolley now, store not supermarket.

This was going to take some getting used to.

Not that it was just her blatant English-isms that were proving a little difficult to adjust to.

Six hours ago, Coraline was in her office, in an empty museum in London. Allowing for the time difference, the woman now staring in a mixture of bemusement and trepidation at the rows upon rows of unfamiliar products, would have just have been getting ready to have lunch.

Instead she was quite literally on the other side of the world, and according to her hastily reset watch, technically before her body had even arrived in her office. Despite the fact that at 8.00am precisely Coraline was only just setting foot in the store somewhere in New York State, she had already been up for easily 12 hours, at least according to her incredibly skewed body clock.

Which would, in hindsight, explain why she was having such trouble trying to piece together not only what on earth she was doing in America at 8.00am on a Sunday, but also why she was clutching a shopping list of the most abstract list of items she had ever seen.

Number one on said list: Toiletries.

That was it.

No explanation. No further details. No precise brands or even, for that matter, any specific items.

Coraline sighed again; massaging her temples half-heartedly with one hand as with the other she guided her cart towards the looming aisle of bathroom products.

To say, however, that she had no idea what was going on would not be entirely correct.

aAa

The man had announced himself while she was knee deep in 19th century South Africa.

"Miss Quinn?"

Coraline jumped at the interruption, nearly knocking a rifle clutching mannequin into whoever it was that was summoning her in the process. After righting the army captain, she pivoted until she could meet the confused gaze of the source of the voice, and came pretty much nose to nose with a man in a suit who looked as if he was about to follow her into the plastic undergrowth she had been arranging.

"Yes?" She looked at the man warily while the barely awake 8 o'clock side of her tried to work out what was wrong with this picture.

The man stared pointedly at her, waiting with the ghost of a smirk on his face until the woman in front of him realised her partly concealed position behind the leaves of a pretend fern, and hopped down out of the exhibit with a slight blush.

"Sorry," She muttered as she picked a bit of loose plastic plant from her skirt. "The museum's closed for renovations so I wasn't exactly expected visitors."

"That much is obvious," the man blatantly eyed her up and down. When his grace returned to her face, eh noticed a scowl had etched itself into the young woman's features. She was also now clutching a walkie-talkie.

"Right, well in that case- seeing as you know that this museum isn't open- would you like to tell me how you got in before I call the police and report you for theft?"

His smile faltered for a second, before he puffed up his chest and brandished his badge.

"I very much doubt the Metropolitan Police will have much to say to this, do you?"

Coraline looked unimpressed as she crossed her arms.

"Well I'm sure whatever joke shop you got that from might have something to say, but the police will probably laugh at you and fine you for wasting their time. Now, back to my original question. Why are you here?"

"Miss Quinn-"

"It's Doctor actually," She snapped as she raised the walkie-talkie again.

"Miss Quinn," The man all but hissed. "If you so much as touch that radio again I will arrest you with all the powers that my badge bestows upon me. Is that clear?"

"Seeing as Miss Quinn is one of the most promising young minds in her field, Agent Clarke, I am sure she understands perfectly," A new voice caused Coraline to again turn, this time to see another man- this time brandishing an American accent and a smile, walking in through the apparently unlocked gallery doors and towards them.

"I am sorry about my junior agent," The man offered his hand, which Coraline shook in a daze. Her mind was still working through two men being in a museum closed for renovations on a Sunday when everyone else was off.

"- a little keen to show their worth." She realised that the man was still talking, and so nodded in what she hoped looked like an understanding manner. That is until she realised that in her small moment of a meltdown in training, she had missed the introduction part of this meeting or whatever the hell it was, and so was shaking the hand of a complete stranger. Well crap.

"Um," Good start, she chastised herself as she released his hand and searched for any clues of where to go next. "That is perfectly understandable, though what is slightly less easy for me to grasp is what you are doing in my museum and why you couldn't just call me if you needed to talk to me so badly."

The man smiled slightly, before gesturing behind her for the other agent to make himself scarce. Coraline took that as a sign to pick up the files she had strewn over the floor of the gallery, and once they were clutched in her arms, start to lead the way towards her office. As she reached the door of the staff area, she made no effort to scan her key card and open the door, instead opting to stare at the man until he answered her question.

"They did mention your persistence," He muttered before meeting her gaze.

"My name is Agent Phil Coulson, as I said, and I work for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

"Homeland as in America, I presume?" Coraline- who was content enough to open the door now she had a name for the man in front of her – did so with a practiced flourish despite the files still taking up most of her arm space.

"Yes, Miss Quinn," Agent Coulson followed her through the marble hallways that the museum kept its resident historian's eyes only. "Although as an agency we deal with international situations as well as domestic ones. We are very far reaching, though some offices, like the London one the fine specimen of an agent you just met reports too, are still a little green I must admit."

Coraline nodded as she opened the door to her office while mentally wincing at the complete tip it had become. Papers were everywhere, some taped to the walls, and others piled high on her desk and the bookshelves around it. When you were the only one working in a museum the size of a small aircraft hangar (if you counted the subterranean archives and the empty galleries) while the rest of the staff got an extended break, tidiness really wasn't a priority- at least not in Coraline's books.

After depositing her own wad of notes on top of what seemed to be the most structurally sound pile, Coraline turned back to Agent Coulson with a small smile.

"You can't place too much of the blame on him," She moved around the office as she spoke, juggling books and folders as she attempted to uncover the illusive second chair she knew had been in here when she had started. "I pulled the Doctor card two months too soon so I'm just as bad."

Coulson chuckled, causing Coraline to pause in her actions.

"From the work I've seen of yours Miss Quinn, two months is very pessimistic."

"Oh, um, thank you I suppose. Though that isn't how it works, I mean I have to graduate with everyone else and they can't release degrees early so…"

Coulson held up his hand, stemming the sudden onslaught of stuttered babble.

"Your doctorate aside, Miss Quinn, S.H.I.E.L.D has been monitoring your work since you submitted your plans for the Smithsonian in January."

January? God, she could hardly remember what she had being doing last week, let alone four months ago. 2012 had been a big year for Coraline. She had finished her dissertation for her doctorate in modern history- which was now pending results- and had submitted designs for museum exhibits that had been positively received in multiple countries.

Her first major project- Sokovia's National Museum's redevelopment brought about in light of a brief period of economic austerity- had meant she had spent two cold months from January to March in the war scarred capital.

On her return, she had found that her job at the National Army Museum in London had been moved forward a month due to building work starting earlier than had been planned, so she had had to shift from a century of political turmoil to nearly 400 years of specific battlefield knowledge in under two weeks in order to plan and physically renovate the top three galleries worth of history that she had been assigned.

By the end of March, with her role just starting to feel normal, she had gotten a transatlantic call at 10 in the morning to congratulate her on being the chosen applicant for a set of designs she had sketched on the sparing nights she had had off to spend in her dilapidated rented apartment in Sokovia. The subject: the propaganda success and literal legend that was Captain America.

With the 70th anniversary of his disappearance being only 3 years away, the Smithsonian in Washington DC had requested ( in a very small circle of academics and museum curators) a completely new and incredibly tourist friendly exhibit to capitalise on the anniversary's publicity. She'd only even seen the request because a professor at her University had slid it to her under an essay he was returning to her, and it was with his wink and one semester's worth of fascinating classes on the man and his faithful companions that she had sketched, written and doodled her way into getting a contract with the frickin' Smithsonian, any historian's fantasy, to make her scrappy ideas a reality.

Not that any of that was happening soon. She was due to fly out (once she had gawked enough at the cost of flights for her poor bank account) at the end of 2013. The entire concept for the exhibit wasn't being released to the public until early 2014, so it was no wonder that she could only remember this particular aspect of her work when she was prompted by the agent in front of her, which was when her suspicions were renewed for a second time that morning.

"We were particularly impressed by your work for the Captain America exhibit at the Air and Space Museum, well, I was at least, I can't wait until it's opened formally, it really was brilliant-"

"How did you access those blueprints? They're top secret and I hardly think whatever agency you work for are in dire need of them enough to seize them."

It was Coulson's turn to look slightly flustered. He ummed and ahhed for a few seconds before Coraline raised an eyebrow and he sighed.

"I had one of my team find the documents for me," He admitted. "Not that that's important right now, Miss Quinn."

Ooh low blow, Coraline thought to herself as she smiled. Pulling the serious government agent card right when she had him on the ropes. She was about to remark as much when she registered Agent Coulson's solemn expression.

"What are you really here for Agent Coulson," She said softly.

"They found him," Coulson's words were sincere, the excitement gone from his tone. "They found Captain Rogers, and they want you to plan his funeral."

Thoughts? Questions? Criticisms? As I said please review so I can improve/ change where necessary. Thanks for reading!