It’s official: Cobie Smulders is reprising her Avengers role in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In fact, the How I Met Your Mother star appears in the very first episode, re-teaming her with Clark Gregg’s resurrected Agent Coulson, in a pilot that’s been kept under wraps by the network.

“I wanted very much to have Cobie in the pilot because as much as anyone else, she IS SHIELD,” says the pilot’s writer-director Joss Whedon in a statement to EW. “She’s cool and commanding, and has the dry humor that plays so well with Clark’s. Also, if she’s in it I get to hang out with Cobie.”

Smulders played the super-serious and super-capable Agent Maria Hill in the 2012 Avengers blockbuster. She’s expected to occasionally appear in ABC’s TV spinoff — it’s tricky because of her HIMYM commitment on rival network CBS. But with her hit comedy entering its final season … who knows? Perhaps, Smulders will join the S.H.I.E.L.D. team full time if the ABC series returns for a second year.