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At midnight the bruise-colored clouds shifted aside and the full moon shone down like a searchlight on the dark, derelict Russian prison. A pair of 18-wheelers, four trucks, three vans, and two jeeps sent owls, wolves, and foxes scampering back into the snowy forest of bony, dying trees. At the front entrance, a balding lieutenant in a wrinkled brown uniform barked at his dozen troops to get in line. His right hand shook when he saluted–whether from his anxiety or because of the subzero temperature, not even he was sure. Hydra general Joseph "the Tycoon" Tsyganov was tall with narrow lips and angry eyebrows. He wore a thick black coat with the collar up and his shoulder-length silver hair flattened down, but neither hid the fact that the Tycoon only had one ear. His voice resembled gravel falling down a steep slope. "The Superior is expecting this shipment tomorrow, Anders," he growled at the trembling lieutenant. "You better have a hell of a good reason for this delay."

"Y-Yes, sir," Anders stammered. "I mean I do, sir. I have a good reason, sir. It's a surprise."

"I hate surprises unless they're from my wife. Unless it IS my wife."

"If you'll permit it, sir, please follow me." Anders led the way into the prison. Two pairs of boots echoed down the damp, cold steps to the basement level. "My men snatched him up in Minsk 48 hours ago. You'll want to speak to him. In fact, you might want to take him with you to Warsaw."

A frozen white cloud of breath trailed behind the Tycoon when he snorted. "Unless this hostage of yours is Nick Fury himself, I doubt that Hydra will have any use for him." When they reached the furthest cell in the deepest corridor of the otherwise empty prison, Anders gestured towards the open door with a magician's panache. The Tycoon frowned, tipped his chin up, and then marched into the cell.

The man hanging from the ceiling by iron shackles around his wrists was barefoot and shirtless. It was so cold that the pools of blood beneath his dangling toes had frozen over as solid and smooth as an ice rink. His body was a minefield of blood, bruises, and goose bumps. Cuts fresh, old, and scarred crisscrossed his muscular chest and arms. The Tycoon advanced like a horse whisperer approaching an injured mare. He knew that a half-alive man could still be 100% deadly, especially if it was a SHIELD field agent. The Tycoon reached out with one sharp forefinger and lifted the man's swollen chin. Instantly he recoiled as if stung. Anders opened his mouth to speak but the Tycoon took him by the throat and shoved him against the cell wall. "You brought one of THEM here?" he bellowed. "Are you INSANE?"

"We–he–I thought you would be pleased!" Anders sputtered. "Won't The Superior reward us for delivering an AVENGER?"

"Did you check him for bugs?"

"We incinerated his gear, strip searched him, took alternate routes in case we were being tailed—"

"You fool. Don't you know anything about tech advances SHIELD made after the Chitauri invasion?" the Tycoon hissed. "The only way to find his locator beacon is to peel off every centimeter of his skin!" Blood vessels popped in Tsyganov's eyes. "If a man like CLINT BARTON gets captured, it's on PURPOSE. It's by DESIGN!" Anders couldn't even hear his own swearwords when, right on cue, the entire prison shuddered as if from an earthquake. Long settled particles of dust shivered awake and began to rain down on them. "They're here," the Tycoon whispered, watching shallow cracks dance through the walls. "You brought a Trojan Horse into my castle!"

Through teeth chattering in the cold, the prisoner suddenly whispered in Russian, "Needed a name for this. Operation Trojan Horse. I like it." Tsyganov dropped Anders. He had to duck a bit to look into the prisoner's eyes. Clint Barton blinked back and gave his enemy an honest-to-God GRIN. "Look at you. Ugly as hell… winning personality…you must be The Tycoon. I'm Hawkeye. I'll be foiling your plans today."

Tsyganov slammed both of his gloved fists into Clint's chest with the force of a battering ram. Anders unsheathed a sidearm but Tsyganov barked "Don't!" before he could aim. "The Avengers are here to arrest me," The Tycoon explained. "If we kill him, they'll kill me." The building shuddered again. A few floors above them something caught on fire.

Anders ducked when a fresh round of dirt fell near his head. "Sir, we should leave. If there's any chance of escaping the Avengers, we should take it now."

Tsyganov didn't disagree. His voice dropped to a deadly whisper and he said to Barton, "You think you've won, don't you? You think I put all of my eggs into this one basket."

"I'd let me go if I were you," Clint advised. "The Avengers are coming. And when they see the state your men have left me in, one of them will have a HELL of a temper tantrum. She'll smash your bones into confetti, and THEN she'll introduce you to the Hulk."

Tsyganov clenched his teeth so tight that one of his molars cracked. "You won't find all of Hydra's armories. If one head is cut off—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Clint sighed. "Hate to be the bearer of bad news, buddy, I really do, but you're the last 'head' in town. Actually, as of now, the last one on the continent."

Anders tugged on Tsyganov's sleeve like a toddler. "Sir, that can't be true. I checked in with the Belarus station and spoke with the conductor an hour ago—"

Tsyganov snatched the gun out of the lieutenant's hand and turned it on him so fast that Anders' desperate expression was frozen on his face when he died. The general pivoted back to Barton and pressed the still smoking muzzle between Clint's eyes. Barton hit him with all he had: a dazzling, satisfied smile. "Belarus, eh?"

The Tycoon must've decided that the suspended Clint Barton was a giant piñata because he spent several of his final precious minutes as a free man whaling on him with a baseball bat.

----------

Clint didn't realize that he'd passed out until he was fighting to pry open his swollen eyes. Five minutes–maybe five days–had passed since the Tycoon dropped that bat and made a break for it. The time didn't really matter to Clint. Five days or five minutes were both too long considering how much blood he'd lost. Every inch of his body that wasn't numb from the cold was too painful to move–or downright impossible to. So he hung there, limp, frozen, and pink like a raw slab of meat in a butcher shop freezer. The prison above him was dead quiet. From Clint's experience he knew that was either a very, VERY good sign or a very, VERY bad one.

Few things in life were black or white, but silence was one of them.

Another five minutes—maybe five days—passed, and then Clint heard metallic footsteps approach the cell. A familiar, cocky voice declared, "I found him! I win, Rogers. You're doing the dishes tonight after victory pizza–oh, SHIT." Scurrying, gasping breaths, and then cold metal fingers poked Clint's neck. "Shit, guys, axe Code Green. Barton needs a doctor ASAP. And tell Banner I don't want to hear any of that 'I'm not that type of doctor' bull—Ouch, stop SQUAWKING at me, Romanoff! He's alive." Clint heard a series of clicking sounds and then a whispered, "Please be alive." Warm fingers replaced the cold probes groping for the pulse point in Barton's throat. "Oh, thank God."

"Tony," Clint croaked.

"Better—" Stark's voice broke. He cleared it, coughed through it, and tried again. "Better late than never, eh, Barton?"

Clint heard the zap of a laser and felt its heat near his hands. The iron cuffs split. He yelped, expecting to crash against stone or titanium or both. He was equally shocked and relieved when he landed horizontally in warm arms. Tony Stark looked ten years older since Clint last saw him two days ago. "Dammit, Barton, what did those assholes do to you?" Tony whispered as he lowered the archer to the floor and examined his injuries. "Or, what DIDN’T they do to you?" He cradled Clint close to his chest and started rubbing his arms. "Shit, you're freezing. You feel that?" Tony asked him. "Can you feel anything?"

Clint couldn't tell where his spine ended and the cold floor began. He took the deepest breath he could and whispered, "Did you get him?"

Tony switched to massaging Clint's left leg. "Thor has Tsyganov tied up like a pretzel. All of the weapons in the armory and the convoy are accounted for."

A memory scratched at his brain. Clint searched for a word. "Belarus," he finally whispered.

Tony tapped a knuckle against Barton's knee. "Still numb?"

"A train in Belarus. Tsyganov's lieutenant mentioned a conductor."

"Clint, you can tell us later. I'm going to put you in the suit, ok? Tell me if I hurt you." Stark instructed JARVIS to arrange the Iron Man armor flat on the floor, parallel to Barton. Clint barely noticed he was moving when Tony lifted him up by the armpits.

"No. Listen… it’s important–I think it's important," Clint slurred. Barton couldn't move his right arm after JARVIS wrapped around it, so he swiped at Stark's arm with his left. "Tony, list–listen to–OUCH, something pinched."

"You felt that. Good. Try to relax, Clint. This suit is one-size-fits-all. It's adjusting to the shape of your—"

"Eggs," Clint blurted out.

Stark looked up from his position kneeling at Clint's feet. He loosened his grip on Barton's left ankle and repeated, "Eggs?"

"The Tycoon said he didn't…put all of his eggs…in one basket," Clint managed. "Tony, there's another shipment of weapons heading for the Warsaw armory. We gotta find it. If we don't, that Hydra base…that Hydra base will be unbreachable."

Tony's wide eyes blinked. "JARVIS—" he began.

"Accessing satellite images for Belarus, sir," the AI announced in Barton's ear.

Clint's skin started to inch. Several moments passed before he realized that the sensation was heat. "Hey, my fingers are still attached," he muttered. "And my toes and my…Oh, good." The heat urged Clint's body to relax and his mind to sharpen. "It's been days," he suddenly hiccupped. "I was only supposed to be here a couple hours."

Tony had walked into the corner of the room where he stared at a dented bat, several red-tipped blades, and a cattle prod that was still warm. He kept his back turned so that Barton couldn't see his contorting face. "The first convoy in Minsk turned out to be a decoy. So was the second one. We were about to call off the mission and extract you when JARVIS confirmed that the real Tycoon was on his way. If we knew—" Tony swallowed the lump in his throat before it could cause his voice to crack again. "Clint, we would've come immediately if we knew they were TORTURING—"

"I know," Clint whispered. "You neutralized the target. That's what matters."

Tony raised his drowning eyes towards the cracked ceiling and blinked until they were dry. "Barton, I don't care if we could've ended all of Hydra today. Nothing is worth—"

"Tony?" a voice called from down the hall. "Tony!"

"Here, Cap," Barton said, knowing that the super-soldier's super hearing would catch even his wispy, raspy voice.

A breathless, singed, sweating Steve Rogers appeared. He froze at the threshold and nearly dropped his shield when he saw Barton's blood on the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and Tony's boots. He knelt at Clint's side and examined the wounds visible on his neck, face, and head. Color flooded his face and he gripped Clint's hand with both of his. "I never should've let you do this," Steve whispered.

Clint used his lips and eyebrows to shrug. "Operation Trojan Horse was my idea. I wasn't going to let anybody else be the bait."

"Operation Trojan Horse. I like that," said Tony.

Steve gave the inventor a look that would make the Hulk flinch. "What are you waiting for? Why haven't you taken him to the jet?"

"Cap, his skin was turning blue. I wasn't about to take him outside without a sweater," Stark said, gesturing at the armor.

"I want some hot chocolate," Clint muttered. "And victory pizza…"

Both men expected Clint to fuss but the archer just shut his eyes and held still when the captain lifted him and put him over one shoulder. "Guess I'll watch our six," Clint quipped when his nose bounced off of Cap's belt. He heard Tony say either "Let's get out of here," or "Let's grab a beer," and then he passed out.

----------

When Clint Barton was eight years old he went to the carnival with a temperature of 103.7. He rode everything that tilted, whirled, and / or spun. When he woke up the next day he could barely move. He wasn't dizzy or nauseated. Nothing was sprained, cracked, or fractured. His body just wouldn't cooperate. Both arms felt boneless like Jell-O. Both legs were stiff and heavy like tree trunks. His head felt like a bowling ball one moment and a helium balloon the next. Sandpaper lined his throat and his lungs felt like a blender of porcupine quills.

Clint wished he felt that good in the days following his imprisonment. He'd been tortured to not quite within an inch of his life, but definitely half a foot. Several times he woke up but couldn't stay conscious for longer than a couple of minutes. This resulted in a bizarre montage of moments:

He saw Natasha cleaning the cuts on his arm with such delicate, thorough precision that she might have been working on a priceless piece of art. When she discovered him watching her, Natasha gently kissed his hand between the two middle knuckles and urged him to fall back to sleep.

Next was Steve, who sat at Clint's bedside in Avengers Tower drinking coffee out of a cup the size of his head and frowning at a "Harry Potter" novel.

Then there was Banner who replaced Clint's dartboard with one of Stark's computer terminals and stood in the corner of the bedroom staring at blueprints, maps, and train schedules.

Thor took "standing guard" literally. Barton found him planted at the foot of the bed, arms crossed tight against his chest, glaring at every shadow.

Once, Clint discovered Tony Stark beside him in the bed, leaning back against the headboard with his boots on the sheets and his empty hands braided in his lap. "Don't get me wrong, Legolas. I'm not saying you're the first one of us I'd choose to be on my dodgeball team–can you imagine playing dodgeball with Thor? But I have to admit that, yes, you are…useful." Tony winced and frowned down at his hands. "Useful and…Dammit, I can't even admit this when nobody is listening!" Stark hesitated, then said all in one enormous breath, "I know I'm an ass sometimes but I'm glad you're with us, the team wouldn't be the same without you, and I need you to get better soon because I miss your stupid sarcastic comments and all the technology in the world can't see things like you do so wake up soon…you bastard." Clint chuckled at that, but passed out again before he could witness the half startled, half embarrassed look on Tony's face.

Finally—consciousness that he could control. Red lights on his bedside alarm clock confirmed that two days had passed since Steve and Tony rescued him. Whether it was 6am or 6pm, Clint wasn't sure. He tried to smell the sun or its absence beyond the Tower walls but he only sensed the chemicals that everyone associates with hospitals. Three pillows supported his neck and four blankets tucked him in tight. The bandages that crisscrossed his body had been changed recently. Half-eaten sandwiches, pill bottles, and dog-eared books covered every table. Two IV bags flanked him. One was connected to the inside of his right elbow and the other to the top of his left hand. Bizarrely, the overhead lights came on the moment his head left the pillow. They glowed brighter as he sat up and dimmed when he leaned back down. Clint never ceased to be amazed by what Tony Stark could come up with.

Clint kicked the blankets off of his naked body. His skin was fresh and clean, as was his hair and teeth. Natasha was probably the one who set out the black sweatpants and the sleeveless maroon t-shirt on a chair beside the bed. He hoped she was the one who gave him the sponge baths, too. A moment later he hoped just as intensely that it was ANYBODY but her. Maybe Tony had a robot. The man had a robot for everything else, why not sponge baths? When Clint dressed himself he got tangled up in the wires connected to a dozen electrodes glued all over his body. Growling, he started ripping them out like weeds from a garden.

At first he didn't realize that Avengers Tower erupted into blaring alarms because of him, but then the God of Thunder arrived hammer-first through the window. Thick violet curtains caught most of the glass but a few shards would've hit Clint if he hadn't covered his head. "Thor, what the HELL?" Barton bellowed.

Thor froze, blinked twice, and said, "Um, I have come to save you, Agent Barton."

The bedroom door burst open. Steve, Tony, Bruce, and Natasha came barreling into the room like linebackers. The identical looks on their faces told Clint that they were either mad, scared, or both. He half-expected them to point weapons. "Son of a BITCH!" Tony sputtered. He scooped up a fistful of the tangled electrodes and shook them at Clint's nose. "These were monitoring your vitals, dumbass! We thought your HEART stopped!" He noticed the shattered window then, and his jaw dropped. The color that had fled his face rushed back in. "Couldn't take the stairs like the rest of us?" he asked Thor through clenched teeth.

"I endeavored to reach Agent Barton's side as quickly as possible." Sheepishly, Thor brushed glass off of his cape and then glanced back over his shoulder at the newly visible peach-colored sky. "I shall procure the obligatory amount of currency needed to properly repair the property I damaged," he assured Tony.

"The phrase is 'I'll pay for that,' Thor," Clint chuckled. A moment later he was wrapped in Romanoff's hug. He couldn't see how red her face was but he felt the heat of her cheek against his. "I'm ok, Nat," he whispered, alternating between patting her back and rubbing small circles against it.

"I know." Natasha hid a sniff by wiping her nose against his shoulder. "Your eyebrows were doing that bobbing thing so I knew you'd wake up today. I made your favorite breakfast."

Clint pumped his fist. "Blueberry Pancakes?"

Natasha fondly patted Clint's cheek. "With kiwis and extra cinnamon, weirdo."

"How about some water first?" Steve retrieved a bottle from a mini-fridge and handed it to Clint. When Barton tried to ask questions about what he missed while he was out, Steve ordered the team not to answer him until Banner did a complete examination and Clint got half a gallon of water, pain pills, and an energy bar in his system. "How are you feeling, Barton?"

"I'm good." Clint frowned and thought about the question again. "I was so cold I thought I might lose a finger."

Tony snorted. "I'd build you a new one."

Steve watched Clint carefully. "You should probably go back to bed. And there's no way you're going out into the field anytime soon."

Natasha shook her head. "The last time someone told Clint to stay behind he hid under the Quinjet cockpit."

Clint chuckled and shook his head. "Remember the look on Coulson's face? I thought he might have to change his pants."

"Well, you did shout BOO."

Half an hour later all six Avengers gathered in the lab to continue the briefing that Clint inadvertently interrupted. A silver 3D map of Europe hovered in the center of the room. "As I was saying," Tony said pointedly at Barton, who responded by smirking at him with blueberry-stained lips. "Banner and I have figured out the three types of Hydra weapons we confiscated. First of all, those Frisbee things we thought were landmines are actually remote-controlled AIR-mines."

Bruce stuffed his fists deep into his pants pockets and shifted his weight as he spoke. "The air-mines are hover-capable. They can float an inch off the ground or as high as two thousand feet. Tony, or Thor, or one of the Quinjets or Helicarriers could easily bump into one hiding in a cloud."

Steve's eyebrows sunk down into a 'v' shape. "How much damage could one air-mine cause?"

Bruce bit his bottom lip and gestured at Tony. "It would turn a flock of birds into ashes," Stark said like he was reporting a dull weather pattern. "Depending on where it hit a commercial airplane, the damage could be catastrophic."

Bruce waited for the information about the first weapon to sink in before he started on the second. "We're calling awful-horrible-terrible invention number two 'blinders.' They look like standard grenades about the size of a tennis ball. Once activated they emit a small but concentrated pulse of ionized radiation so powerful that they instantly cause severe nuclear cataracts. Closing your eyes or looking the other way won't protect you."

"Speak English," Thor commanded, repeating the phrase he'd learned from Steve. He grinned, proud of himself, and Rogers gave him a thumb's-up.

"It will damage your vision," Tony explained. "Technically you won't be blind but it'll be like looking at everything through a fogged-up window."

Natasha fingered a knife she kept in her boot. "Is it permanent?"

"Symptoms should last about an hour unless you get dosed by the radiation over and over again for years." A small, half-amused half-depressed smile appeared in the corner of Bruce's pale lips. "Or if the dose is ten thousand times more powerful than expected."

Tony patted Bruce on the arm as he walked past him to a computer terminal. "And, finally, we have the super-tank." A swipe of Stark's forefinger and blueprints of an olive-green tank popped up on a screen that was as long and tall as Steve's motorcycle. "This is the M4 Sherman tank. Built by the United States in 1940. 19 feet long, armor three inches thick, weighs 67,000 pounds. I can neither confirm nor deny that my dad helped design this sweet baby." Tony winked at the group. Half of them rolled their eyes. Tony swiped left on the screen and a gigantic tank replaced the first. "This is Nazi Germany's Landkreuzer Ratte," Tony said with a cartoonish German accent. "It weighed 2000 TONS. Five times more than the heaviest super-tank in the world. It WOULD’VE weighed 2000 tons, I should say, but Hitler never actually built it."

"That's the size of a house," said Clint. "That's the size of YOUR house, Tony."

"There wasn't a tank with the convoy. I would've noticed," Natasha said.

"Not an ASSEMBLED one. Would you like to take a stab at what I'm going to say next, Cap?" Stark asked.

Steve's lips formed a flat, straight line. "Hitler didn't build one…But the Red Skull did."

"He would've if he hadn't met you," Stark said with his most dramatic sigh. "In fact the tank he designed was even larger, but half the weight because it would've been made of a lighter metal like Vibranium. Red Skull added two more gun turrets and advanced propulsion systems. Modern Hydra scientists have even added retro-reflective panels."

"Hydra is building super-tanks." Steve rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Gigantic, fast, INVISIBLE tanks…"

"Tell me we seized 99% of these air-mine Frisbees and blinding tennis balls and super-tanks at the prison," Natasha said.

Tony dropped his eye contact with all of them. "Hill and Fury interrogated The Tycoon. His prototypes are already in Warsaw with some Hydra bigwig called The Superior. He has a freaking army hidden somewhere in that city. This week the final shipments are on their way to him divided between the truck convoy and the train."

Natasha's nostrils flared. "75%?" she hoped.

Tony and Bruce exchanged uneasy glances. "If those weapons—especially the tanks—get to that armory…" Banner sighed, and whispered, "That Hydra base will be indestructible."

The Avengers wallowed in silence for half a minute. Clint finally finished his pancakes and raised his hand like a schoolchild, but spoke before anyone actually gave him permission. "That's the bad news. The good news is that you know where the train full of scary weapons is, right?"

"Hydra added retro-reflective panels to this train of theirs, too." Stark pivoted and marched to the hologram of Europe. A snap of his fingers and pink lines appeared on the map, crisscrossing each other like blood vessels. "This is every track that goes through both Belarus and Warsaw, including ones that fell into disrepair or were supposedly uprooted after World War Two. The Tycoon's train may be stealth but we can still follow it just by measuring the vibrations it causes on the tracks. Locals have reported hearing a train without actually seeing one."

"This is where it gets complicated," Bruce said, pointing at a crossing three miles west of Belarus. "The vibrations stop here. That means the train must have stopped. We investigated but there's nothing there. Literally nothing. This is deep, empty countryside. The stealth train just disappeared. Er, disappeared MORE."

Another snap of Tony's fingers. Hundreds of bright blue stars appeared on the map. "These are places we think the stealth train was spotted—Er, was HEARD. And as you can see, none of these locations are on train tracks," said Stark.

"Train tracks that we're aware of," Bruce clarified.

Snap number three. Blue lines connected the blue stars. "What we have here are ghost tracks," said Tony.

"An invisible train on invisible train tracks." Cap looked like he was about to storm out of the room. "That's how Hydra has been transporting weapons all over Europe."

Tony followed the blue line with his finger all the way to Germany before it disappeared outside of Berlin. "Here's where it gets even stranger. Witness accounts stop here. Again, we investigated, but again, there's no train. It disappeared from the known train tracks AND the ghost tracks. But Banner thinks he found it."

Bruce stepped forward. "I think that people don't hear it anymore because the conventional steel wheel train was loaded onto a magnetic levitation train. Maglevs travel quiet and as fast as two hundred miles per hour. So, to find an invisible maglev, we need to measure ground-level wind speeds."

"Levitation?" Steve's brow furrowed quick and tight. "You mean—you mean a train that floats? Floats on magnets?"

"Whoa," said Natasha, drawing the word out to three syllables. "Maglevs don't run on tracks, but they do need guideways. Somebody would've noticed Hydra burying giant metal coils underground."

"Not if it happened so long ago that the witnesses aren't around anymore," Steve said.

"These so-called guideways were buried when Hydra was first born!" Thor was happy to be able to chime in. "During the dawn of the 1700's!"

"1900's," Steve corrected with a smile. "I'm old, but I'm not THAT old. And it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they had the technology back then."

"How are we going to measure the wind speeds?" Clint wondered. "Even the most vigilant witnesses will just think they felt a strong breeze."

A self-satisfied Stark-esque smile briefly graced Bruce's features. With a snap of his fingers, all of Tony's stars and lines were replaced by millions of miniscule yellow dots. "This is every windmill on the continent. I programmed an algorithm that sends all of their measurements straight to JARVIS. We've recorded every instance of 200mph ground-level wind speeds, plus or minus 25mph. JARVIS, show a 72-hour time lapse." The team watched as the yellow dots morphed into lines that danced across Europe over a period of three days. "They've been taking the scenic route since the Tycoon was taken out. Zigzagging detours left and right. JARVIS, insert in the data from the last six hours." Bruce's eyes followed the yellow line as it traveled down through Sweden until it came to a halt at the southern shore. "Oh," Bruce said meekly. "Well…Damn."

Clint pointed out the obvious. "Our invisible train on invisible train tracks just disappeared into the Baltic Sea."

"Trains don't go underwater," said Steve. When nobody confirmed that, he rolled his eyes and muttered, "Trains didn't USE to go underwater…"

"You do not have these windy-hills in water?" Everyone ignored Thor as well.

"What do we do? Sonar?" Natasha suggested. "The Helicarriers have echolocation—"

"Too much space to cover, too little time," Tony sighed. "They could arrive in Warsaw while we're still trying to get a carrier to that area."

"I've got an idea." Clint held up a forefinger. "We need some dynamite and a really, REALLY big fishing net. Sure we might shake the seafloor and drain the—"

Suddenly Banner jogged to Tony's side. "JARVIS, extrapolate seismographic patterns," both Bruce and Tony requested simultaneously.

“Calculating,” the AI reported.

Tony and Bruce bumped fists. "I knew you'd have something to contribute eventually, Barton," Tony joked.

"You're welcome…?" said Clint.

"Seismographs measure underground tremors," Natasha explained to Steve and Thor. "Earthquakes. Vibrations, basically."

"An underwater maglev guideway has to be anchored to the seabed," said Bruce, thinking out loud.

"And a train going 200 miles per hour would cause artificial tremors," Tony continued. "A PATTERN of them."

“Data compiled,” JARVIS announced. The yellow line continued into the sea. JARVIS' extrapolated speed and direction and determined that it would make landfall on the north coast of Poland near Mielno.

"If we push the jet to its limits we could get there in seven hours. Six and a half if we're lucky," Romanoff calculated.

Stark and Banner shared a skeptical look. "If we leave now we might intercept them right when they emerge from the water," Tony decided. "And I mean NOW. Right now."

There was nothing more to say. The Avengers sprinted to the Quinjet and took off.

----------

Once he was sure that his parents were asleep, Jonas dumped his textbooks out of his book bag and filled it with clean socks, canned applesauce, and peanut butter crackers. "You'll be sorry," he whispered as he snuck out of the hotel room and sprinted down the hall. "Mom, I won't be around anymore to wash the dishes three times and put out your cigarettes when you fall asleep." Jonas scrambled down the staircase and kicked open the first exit he found. "Adrian, you'll have to bribe somebody else to do your term papers." The teen jogged the three blocks to the beach. At two in the morning there was no one out to see him running away, let alone stop him. "You'll find somebody else to yell at, Dad, but it won't be as fun because he won't cry and you won't be able to call him a pussy." Jonas sprinted down the beach at full speed, wincing when sand went down his sneakers. The plastic red canoe was still under a blue tarp beneath a rusty sign that warned visitors not to litter. While his family worked on their tans the previous afternoon, Jonas had kept an eye on everything within eyesight that could float. He saw a group of boys arguing the moment they came out of the Baltic Sea. They were still fighting when they tied up the canoe and forgot to put the lock on the chain. Jonas ripped the tarp off and the chains came with it. "Grandma and Grandpa will miss me," Jonas said as he dragged the canoe towards the black water. "So will Miss Muckwallow." His thoughts turned to his eight grade teacher's smile and for a moment he had second thoughts.

A squish-squirting sound behind him. Jonas whirled towards the water so fast that his backpack flew right off of his shoulders. Thirty yards away something was rising out of the sea. For a moment he thought it was the fin of an enormous metal shark, but then the silver moonlight illuminated a curve. A metallic oval approached the shore like a whale about to beach itself. Once it was on the sand Jonas saw that it was a hollow tube three times longer than a school bus. No light came from it but if he held his breath, Jonas was sure that he could hear the sound of wind whistling.

More whistling behind him. Jonas turned again, giving himself whiplash. The horizon was empty except for stars and towering hotels. Jonas blinked and suddenly an enormous black bird hovered above him. After another blinked he realized that it was actually some sort of plane. A hatch opened and a figure descended from its underbelly. The man's hands shook as he grasped the rope. He looked a bit queasy – nearly green. When he landed he stumbled in the sand, turned in a circle twice, then finally made eye contact with Jonas. "Oh," the stranger said. "Hi there…kid. What, uh, what are you doing out here so late?"

Jonas didn't mean to answer honestly but he was caught off-guard. "I'm running away," he said, pointing at the canoe.

"Oh." The man massaged his hands. "Could you, uh, postpone your trip? Maybe move your boat? Something bad is scheduled to come out of that tunnel in about five minutes."

Jonas wasn't sure if it was some strange light or his own imagination, but the stranger's eyes seemed to be glowing green. "I know who you are!" Jonas gasped. "You're that angry green guy who helped save New York!"

"Yep, I'm angry green guy. That's what they call me." Bruce Banner made a motion with his hands like he was trying to shoo away a curious cat. "Seriously, kid, you're going to get run over if you don't get out of here now."

Suddenly gusts of wind burst from the half-submerged tunnel like someone at the other end was screaming through it. Banner tapped his right ear with a green-tinted forefinger. "Tony, there's a civilian here. We have a few more minutes, right?" His eyes widened and flashed green at Jonas. "RUN!" he shouted.

Jonas took less than a dozen steps before a burst of wind that would rival a tornado knocked him over. He twisted in the sand just in time to see the Hulk take what appeared to be an invisible punch in the gut. The green monstrosity folded in half with a bellowed "oof!" He slid forward, rolled, and then bounced into the air like a dribbled basketball. The Hulk should've landed face down in the sand but he slammed into something else that Jonas could hear but not see. It catapulted him into the air and over the retreating tunnel, and Banner belly flopped into the dark Baltic Sea.

----------

"That train is HULK-proof," Tony Stark yelled.

Steve jumped out of the copilot's seat and leaned over Tony's shoulder just in time to see the Hulk sink. "Was it going faster than we thought?"

"That wasn't the problem," Tony said. "They greased up those retro-reflective panels. He slid right off the nose!"

"Thor, keep the ramp down! I'll go back for Banner!" Natasha shouted. She unbuckled herself, then smacked the button that released the motorbike strapped to the ceiling. By the time she was straddling it and revving the engine, Tony got the jet close enough to the ground for her to land safely. She sped back towards the beach at full speed.

Tony gestured at his storage cabinet. He stepped aside and let Clint take the controls as the Iron Man armor began to attach itself to him one piece at a time. "JARVIS, report!"

“The magnetic transmitter on Dr. Banner's clothes successfully attached itself to the maglev,” the AI announced. “According to the GPS signal the train is going due south at 55 miles per hour…67…80…”

Clint rolled the jet and sped after the purple light blinking on the dashboard HUD. Anxious, Thor tossed Mjolnir over his head like pizza dough. "We must stop the mechanical snake before it reaches this nation's capital city!" The god of Thunder knelt on the ramp and aimed. "I shall endeavor to—"

"Don't bother," Tony interrupted. "The only thing striking that train with lightning will accomplish is reversing the magnetic poles. It'll bounce like it hit a pothole, but that's it."

"Can we not just shoot it with one of your weapons?" Thor suggested.

Steve pulled his cowl down over his head and hooked his shield onto his back. "If we blow that thing up not only will we kill everyone inside but thousands of civilians would be in danger if those weapons explode."

"So what's plan B, boys?" Barton asked. He cursed under his breath when the train zigzagged to the left. Even Thor had to grab onto a railing to steady himself when the jet twisted.

"Banner was plan B!" Tony reminded them. "How about plan C as in Cap?" The faceplate snapped on and hid his smirk.

Steve scrambled for ideas. "Barton, can you land this thing on the roof?"

"On the roof of the invisible train that's going a hundred miles per hour?" Clint demanded through clenched teeth. "Are you KIDDING me?"

Suddenly a blue light flashed and the proximity alarm wailed. The maglev had anti-aircraft weapons. Not only were the barrels invisible like the train, but so were the shells. "SHIT!" Clint gulped. A shot nicked the starboard side and the jet sagged.

"JARVIS, damage report!" Tony shouted. JARVIS got one word out before his voice gurgled and cracked like he was being strangled. "Thank you," Stark called in an exaggerated sing-song voice.

Another shot. This one grazed an engine. Sweat pooled on Clint's upper lip. "Abandon ship!" he yelled.

Steve tossed Clint's weapons to Tony. "Are you sure?"

Clint hissed when sparks exploded from a computer terminal and rained down on the back of his already bruised neck. "Thor, get him out of here!" he barked. Steve started to protest but Thor's arm was as thick as Cap's leg. Steve was lucky that he could still breathe when the god grabbed him around his stomach and dragged him out of the plane.

Tony's armored fingers clenched Clint's shoulder. "Let's go, Legolas!"

"Ten more seconds!" Clint insisted. The jet rolled and the only reason why he stayed in his chair was because Tony held him there. "Have to–make sure–don't hit–civilians—" Tree branches whipped across the cracked front window.

"CLINT!"

"Five seconds!"

Tony would give Hulk or Thor those five seconds. Maybe even Steve. Maybe. But not Romanoff, and not Barton. "For the love of—" he sputtered when Clint elbowed him in the face right after he tried to yank him out of the chair. Tony clenched his teeth, wrapped his arms around Clint's torso and activated his thrusters. They got clear in time, but Tony felt the heat of the jet's explosion even through his armor. It must have overwhelmed Barton because he went limp as a dead bird in Tony's arms.

----------

Natasha Romanoff stood on the shore of the Baltic Sea with her arms crossed tight against her chest and a twitch in the corner of her mouth. She wished, not for the first time, that she had a camera with her. A young boy in a red canoe was paddling in with a waterlogged, half-naked, gasping Bruce Banner in tow. The maglev tunnel had retreated back underwater. The train was gone, so was the Quinjet, and the town continued to sleep like nothing had happened.

"Shut up," Bruce growled when he waded out of the water and saw the barely concealed grin on his teammate's face.

The kid introduced himself as Jonas. "What do we do now?" he asked. He held his chin up high and placed his fists on his hips in a cliché superhero pose.

"WE will be chasing down the bad guys," Natasha said, cocking her chin at Bruce.

"And you are going home," said Bruce. He put an arm around Jonas' shoulder. "And you tell whoever made you want to run away that if they mess with you, they mess with the Hulk." Bruce thanked Jonas and then followed Natasha to the bike.

"You ok?" the Black Widow asked once they were out of earshot.

"Just winded." Bruce winced and rubbed his abs. "Bet I looked like Wile E. Coyote. I'm more embarrassed than anything."

Natasha patted his back fondly. "You should be."

Bruce heard something 'off' in her voice. "Are the others ok?"

"I'm not sure." Her pale nose wrinkled. "The jet's off the radar."

---------

Stark blinked open his suit's HUD and discovered that the train was four hundred yards south. Another blink and Thor and Steve's silver and blue dots appeared on the map. "Cap? You two ok?" Tony asked over the coms.

"Uh…" Rogers exhaled. "Remember when you calculated that they would need about fifty yards’ worth of train cars to fit all of the weapons?"

Tony wasn't sure how to react to his friend's tone of voice. "Yeah…?"

"Thor and I accidentally found the caboose. And the train is a hundred yards long–maybe more."

Tony cradled Clint's spine against his chest and sped up. "Exactly how does one 'accidentally' find a caboose?"

"We sort of, uh, fell on it. Tony, are you ok?"

"Fine. Why?"

"You didn't make an inappropriate joke about the word 'caboose.' Barton?"

"Unconscious. Damn martyr almost went down with the ship. JARVIS is scanning him." Tony grunted and adjusted his grip on Barton. "We're coming."

----------

The cannons opened fire the second that Tony landed on the maglev roof. Steve raised his shield. Stark straddled Clint's unconscious body and cut around him with a laser like a cop using chalk to outline a dead body. Thor couldn't see the invisible missile but he heard it coming, and managed to get his hammer up in time to deflect the brunt of the blast. He fell back into Steve, who slammed into Stark, who collapsed on top of Barton, who fell through the new hole in the roof. The four Avengers landed on the floor in a dogpile.

The ruckus woke Clint up. "Oh get off me," he groaned, swatting at his teammates with the strength of a newborn kitten. "Oh, you sons of bitches I hate you get the hell off now…"

Thor popped up. "Cease moving!" he bellowed, pointing Mjolnir like a gun. Gasps echoed throughout the white-walled caboose. Huddling together in the furthest corner of the car was a wide-eyed group of men, women, and children ages one to 100.

Steve put his hand on Thor's forearm. "Civilians!" he warned. Thor allowed Steve to force his arm back down to his side. Cap set his shield on the floor and held his palms up as if surrendering. "I'm sorry if we frightened you. We're here to help," he announced. When none of them responded to English, Steve tried the statement again in broken German. Tense shoulders relaxed a bit as some of the civilians understood him. Other shoulders shook with laughter at how badly he bungled their language.

Stark helped Clint to his feet and handed over his bow and arrows. "I thought your marshmallows got roasted back there."

"Dudes don't ask dudes about their marshmallows, Stark," Clint grunted. He winced as he shouldered his weapons. His visible skin was red but not quite blistering. "Everything is going to be all right," he said to the civilians. He repeated himself in German, Polish, French, Russian, Spanish, and a few more languages until he was certain that everyone in the group understood that the Avengers meant them no harm. "Half of them are in their pajamas," he observed.

"Perhaps the reason why this contraption explored the entire continent was not because they were trying to elude us," Thor wondered.

"It's a slave labor force," Steve whispered hoarsely. His face turned deadly red in the dim light.

"Somebody has to put those death Frisbees together," said Stark.

"So what's the plan?" Barton asked.

Steve and Stark exchanged glances. "We need to get the civilians to safety," Cap said. He examined the blank walls, the empty white floor, and the single iron door that led to the next compartment. It took all of his strength to slide it open half a meter. The caboose was suctioned tight to the next car but there was a pair of red release levers secured in the upright position. Steve theorized that the cars could be separated easily enough. The men, women, and children could be let loose like a fish from a hook, the car slowly sliding to a stop somewhere in the Polish countryside.

"We need to get this train visible and find the weapons," said Stark. "And we better hurry. They'll send some guards back here soon."

From the rear of the crowd a small girl no older than four or five approached. She stared at Thor curiously, and slightly fearfully. He offered her a gentle smile, then knelt onto one knee so that they could see each other eye-to-eye. "What is your name?" he asked. When she didn't understand he pointed at his heart and told her his, then gestured at her.

She smiled–all yellow hair and yellow teeth and tanned skin. "Amelia." Dirt and dust caked her work apron, and the fabric crackled when she reached deep into her front pocket. Her hands reemerged with a bouquet of yellow, pastel pink, and orange wildflowers wrapped in a vine. She held them out for Thor and said three or four sentences with a smile, and although Thor couldn't understand her language he thought he understood the gesture.

"Thank you." The demigod took the flowers and tucked them neatly into the side of his belt. "These are most glorious." He gave the young girl a dry peck on the cheek. She blushed and giggled and disappeared back into the crowd.

"Let's go, blondie," Stark called from the door. As soon as all four Avengers were safe in the next car and the caboose was sealed but not locked, Tony pulled the release levers and unhitched the civilians from the rest of the train. Stark was equally startled and unsurprised when they found more civilians in the next car, and the next, and the next…

"Good thing we didn't just blow this train up from the air," Clint muttered as they unhitched the eighth car in a row. "I thought there were supposed to be weapons in this thing?"

"That's what Hill said," Rogers reminded him.

It was the white-walled, stale-aired, dimly-lit car number 13 that finally housed something other than half-starved prisoners. Coffin-shaped camo-green crates were stacked floor to ceiling. Clint used his bow like a crowbar and started opening up boxes left and right. Steve went to join him but suddenly Tony put a hand on his shoulder. "You ok, old man?" Stark asked quietly. When Steve's only response was a cocked eyebrow, Tony pointed at the shield. It was trembling slightly. Steve was trembling.

Cap sighed and averted his eyes. "I hate trains."

"Why?" Tony asked. When Steve walked forward deeper into the car, he followed. "Oh, that's right. You liberated some of the concentration camps."

"Yes, but I'm not thinking about those trains," Steve said. He hesitated for half a minute, then began to speak as he examined the contents of one of the coffin-boxes. "The last time I was on a Hydra train…my best friend died. At least I thought he did until…until he tried to kill me last month."

Stark mentally cursed at himself. "Right. Barnes. Right." Tony gently patted Steve's right shoulder. "You know, he was one of my favorite action figures."

Steve waded through aluminum cans of spam, peas, and lima beans. "Action figures?"

"When I was a kid my dad got me these army action figures–just crude plastic things. That was around the time he started telling me stories. Stories about the war, stories about you…I ended up naming my army guys after you and your teammates."

Steve smiled. A few years slid off of his face in a fraction of a second. "I'm touched."

"Don't be. I named the ugliest one after you. Made a little shield out of a bottle cap. I couldn't find any red and blue paint so I stole my mom's pink and silver nail polish."

"Bet your dad got a kick out of that."

That statement doused the little bit of sparkle in Tony's brown eyes. Steve felt the mood sour–sensed something like a storm front. "I got kicked because of that," Tony said quietly. "Now that I think about it, my old man started, uh, kicking things around the time that he started telling those old stories…Definitely a correlation there."

Steve was about to reply when they both heard a thump from the rear of the car. "Cap!" Clint called. When Steve and Tony sprinted over they discovered Barton leaning over Thor, who lay spread-legged on the floor looking like he was battling a beast of a hangover.

"Thor?" Steve waved his hand in front of the demigod's eyes to get his attention. "Hey–look at me–what is it? What's wrong?"

Thor frowned. When he spoke his words slurred together. "Odd…I appear to be dizzy…weak…I feel as if all of my strength has been stolen from me…"

Tony noticed the redness first. "You're bleeding, big guy."

Thor held his right hand in front of his nose. Blood oozed from a cut no larger than an eyelash. "Inconsequential. I was merely pricked by one of the flowers." He pointed his thumb at the bouquet in his belt. "Just a thorn…"

Tony's iron hands plucked the flowers out of Thor's belt and spread them flat on the floor. "I don't see anything that would–wait, there are a few strands of mistletoe mixed in. You allergic to mistletoe, buddy?"

Thor mumbled something unintelligible. His eyes dropped like a guillotine and he went limp. "Thor—Thor!" Steve shook him gently, and then Clint smacked him across the chin.

Tony glared at the traitorous flowers. "What the hell? How could a single mistletoe thorn take down a god?"

"Déjà vu," Clint muttered. The other two looked at him expectantly, but he just shrugged. "Something about Norse myths and mistletoe rings a bell."

"Dammit, I needed the hammer to short-circuit the train's retro-reflective panels—CAP!" Tony rammed his shoulder into Steve. The bullet parted the captain's hair but missed the rest of him.

Clint rolled behind a coffin and came up shooting arrows two at a time. Three figures in black uniforms crowded the door to the next car.

----------

Once the retro-reflective panels disconnected from the rest of the train, the caboose and all of the other unhitched cars turned visible. Each car stopped somewhere along the maglev guideway, creating a breadcrumb trail for Bruce and Natasha to follow on the motorcycle. After so many close calls where they barely missed running down civilians, Bruce had settled his forehead against the center of Natasha's spine so that he could endure the ride without puking down her shirt. So his head was down and his eyes were closed when the tenth train car exploded.

It was on their left, eight feet away at the most. When the bomb was triggered it sent both of them airborne, pin wheeling in slow motion. Bruce watched his hand turn green as it stretched out for Romanoff's. She seemed to shrink as he grew. Bruce's last conscious thought was an order at the Hyde to his Jekyll:

Save her!

----------

The Superior looked exactly like his twin brother, down to the angry eyebrows and the missing ear. To be precise, it was Joseph "The Tycoon" Tsyganov who looked exactly like his older-by-two-minutes twin. Sufyan "The Superior" Tsyganov forced Joseph to have his ear removed after he lost his own in a firefight so that the twins could continue to be decoys for each other. To be precise, so that Joseph could be a decoy for Sufyan, as needed. Not that it mattered now–now that Joseph was in Nick Fury's clutches. He'd served his purpose. Sufyan hoped and prayed that his brother was well cared for.

That prayer lasted, maybe, five seconds. Five seconds because, technically, Joseph wasn’t really Sufyan’s twin…

The Superior sat alone in the maglev's nose surrounded by forty-two monitors. That number gradually dropped as the invading Avengers unhitched the carts from his horse one by one. He let them do it. He waited patiently as they moved from one car to the next, cocky bastards patting themselves on the back as they freed the people they assumed were prisoners. Nothing entertained The Superior more than watching Tony Stark get fooled by a 9-year-old boy pretending to cry for his parents–parents that were only a few cars away laying the next trap for the "super" heroes.

Finally, the poison in the mistletoe kicked in. Thor was down, subdued, and it was time to spring the trap. The Superior's grin was wider than his face when he ordered the Hydra guards to attack.

The Superior didn't enjoy violence when he wasn't the one inflicting it. One-to-one, face-to-face with an opponent, close enough to smell his enemy's blood, that was The Superior's proverbial cup of tea. So he let his mind wander as the first sniper aimed his rifle at Captain America's head.

His plan. He loved the poetry of it all. The elegance of it. How simple it was. His men leaked false information to The Tycoon's men, who accidentally leaked it to the Avengers, who found the "secret" train and hunted it down, never knowing that there were zero weapons on it, never knowing that it was designed specifically to capture them, never knowing that the weapons they were seeking were already safe and sound in the Warsaw armory.

Thor was the first priority. The man was a god, so what could possibly take him down? The Superior recalled his school lessons about Norse mythology. He recalled one of Loki's tricks, the one where he fooled his brother Baldur. The grand god was felled not by a monster or a spell but by a single thorn of mistletoe. The Superior had no reason to think that mistletoe itself could literally harm, let alone kill a being like Thor, but the story gave him an idea. And that idea took him to an old friend…

The Superior clapped when Thor passed out. Clapped like he was watching a Broadway show. His clapping hands turned into fists when Steve Rogers wasn't shot with that first bullet, but then he reminded himself that there were plenty more to come. The Avengers were forced to leave Thor and his hammer behind as they fought the Hydra guards into the next train car, and the one after that, and after that. The Superior decided that it was like watching salmon swimming upstream. He curled his fingers into a bear's claw and mimed slicing Tony Stark's throat the next time he jumped out of the water.

The deeper the Avengers fought their way into the train, the more imprisoned they were–and they didn't even know it. They didn't notice that the rooms were getting narrower because the walls, floor, and ceiling were getting thicker. They didn't know that after some of the Hydra personnel doubled back to retrieve Thor's unconscious body, each train car slid forward and around the next, encasing it. Gradually Thor's abandoned hammer was buried in layers of steel. And the Avengers were at the bottom of a set of Russian nesting dolls. Each time they moved forward, another layer wrapped around them. By the time they reached the thirtieth car those walls were so secure that not even the Hulk could have punched his way out.

The Superior was watching one of the last working screens when Captain America suddenly stopped swimming upstream. Bizarrely, he ducked behind Hawkeye and Iron Man and pressed his bare ear against the wall. The Superior knew what he was listening for. Leave it to the super-soldier's super-hearing to detect the vibrations the train cars made as they swallowed each other like a snake swallowing its own tail. On screen, Rogers shouted something at Stark. The two traded places, and Hawkeye and the Captain laid down cover fire as Stark tried to shoot his way through the impenetrable wall. It was like an ant trying to boar its way out of an iceberg.

The Superior tapped the microphone clipped to his good ear. "Phase two," he ordered, speaking German with a Russian accent. "And three, and four, and five."

Four things happened within minutes of each other. Banner and Romanoff were blown up by one of the train cars. A guard launched an electric coil that wrapped around Iron Man's armor and electrocuted him. Another sniper aimed for Rogers–this time with a tranquilizer dart the size of a deck of cards–and hit him in the neck. The SHIELD agent, Barton, surrendered then, and The Superior nodded his approval. The man was no coward. He didn't give up, he just knew that they were being captured, not killed, and that he was of more use to his friends conscious, observing, and taking mental notes. There would be plenty of time for him to make those observations. The train wouldn't reach the Hydra base in Warsaw for a few hours.

The Superior arranged his fingers into a steeple and rested his elbows on his knees. He finally had everything he wanted: the base, the weapons, the personnel, and the hostages. Now was the fun part. Now was the one-on-one, the face-to-face. He was a giant bear with an armful of salmon. He was going to eat them slowly, savoring each scream...

----------

"I like the white. Very sleek. Who's your decorator?" Clint asked the tall, chinless Hydra agent who had him pinned against the wall of the maglev train. "And the uniforms. Basic black, very Hydra-y. I like black with a little purple or maroon. Always have." The chinless guy's nostrils flared. "You really should add a little more color to your palette. I'll ask to borrow a Bedazzler when I visit your mom tonight."

"Shut up," Chinless growled. Behind him, two pairs of guards dragged Thor and Rogers away. The maglev had come to a stop, but Clint could only guess where. They were underground, judging by the change in air pressure.

"This crappy canned stuff–is that all they feed you? Tuna fish and peas? SHIELD would feed you better, man. Lots of steak and potatoes."

"Shut UP!"

"And the security here—WOW—invisible cannons to protect Spam? Must be very important Spam. Unless this was all an elaborate trap to catch us…I'm guessing this was all an elaborate trap to catch us." Clint endured a smack across the mouth but kept talking. "Personally, I like snow peas. Snow peas and green beans." Smack number two busted open the corner of his mouth. "Trust me, when you're on guard duty, nothing beats snow peas and green beans and coffee. Keeps the senses sharp. That's all I ate when I was guarding Selvig and the Cube. That and this amazing macaroni salad that Romanoff makes. She won't tell me what the secret ingredient is but I'm pretty sure it's red wine."

The guard's grip shifted from Clint's chest to his throat. "Shut up or I'll shut you up permanently!"

The other guards returned and started trying to open up the Iron Man armor with crowbars. Tony lay on his back on the floor and hadn't stirred since being electrocuted. "Now hoagies—HOAGIES deserve to be escorted on an invisible train to a hidden armory in an undisclosed location—oof!" Clint doubled over when the man's fist rammed into his bellybutton.

Clint sagged against the guard. Before he was propped back up he managed to pocket Chinless' gun.

"It won't come off." A Hydra agent with a moustache tossed his crowbar aside, barely missing Clint's head. "Maybe a chainsaw?"

The stout agent with zero front teeth snapped his fingers. "Dynamite!"

"What?" his companions blubbered.

"Low yield, carefully placed at the seams…It could work!"

Clint continued what he liked to call ‘Operation Smartass.’ Natasha labeled it after Clint’s “strategy” got them through Budapest. "Great idea, DUMBASS. I'm betting your boss wants that tech. Doubt he'll be thrilled if you blow it to hell." Clint actually sympathized with their plight. More than once he'd had to free the billionaire when he was unconscious either from a battle injury or from a night of drinking. "Let me do it, will you? I know where the external release levers are."

"Then just tell us," Moustache demanded.

"Stark is paranoid, fellas. The levers won't release without an Avenger's thumbprint. Plus, you have to enter a Morse code. Wouldn't want stray debris bumping into him and removing the suit mid-flight, GENIUS."

The guards exchanged glances. "No tricks," Zero-Front-Teeth said.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Clint shrugged off the chinless guy and knelt beside his friend. He ran his fingers under Tony's chin until he found a pair of diamond-shaped buttons. He poked the first while simultaneously pinching the inside of Tony's left arm. He did the same with the second button on the right arm. With his body blocking the guards' view, Clint was able to keep his thumb on diamond button number three and use the stealthy communicator to type out an SOS in Morse code with the Avengers' encryption. By now Fury and what remained of SHIELD had to know something was wrong. Clint just had to help them find him.

Barton didn't have to take off the helmet to release the rest of the armor, but the goons behind him didn't know that. He gently twisted the helmet clockwise a few clicks, then counter-clockwise a few more like he was turning the dial on a safe. Tony was breathing steadily. JARVIS was offline. The electrical weapon shorted the AI out. Clint slid his forefinger underneath Tony's jawbone and felt for his heartbeat.

Once he felt Clint's shadow and knew that the archer's body was blocking him from the bad guys, Tony peeked through narrow eyelids and whispered through the softest exhale, "That's good. The thumbprint idea. I like that. I'll have to incorporate that into future suits."

"Can you move?" Barton whispered.

"Get on with it!" one of the guards growled, toeing Clint's spine.

"Sorry, Legolas…" Stark's eyes slid shut.

"Tony?"

"Hey!"

"Two more buttons," Barton reassured them. He found them behind Tony's knees, lined his fingers up, and pushed them simultaneously. Instantly the metal seams connecting Tony's legs, torso, and arms parted. Equally impressed and curious, goons one, two, and three stepped forward to see.

Clint caught the first guard in the neck with his elbow, then ripped Tony's armored right arm off and bitch-slapped guard number two across the mouth. He retrieved the revolver from his pocket and hit number three in the chest. Right then a bullet pierced the floor half an inch from the archer's big toe. Barton froze. Standing in the doorframe was a man who was supposedly in Nick Fury's custody. He was the same height, and had the same shoulder-length silver hair and angry eyebrows.

"The man you met was my twin brother," the man with the gun said, apparently reading Clint's mind. "I am his superior, and now yours. Drop your weapons." When Clint hesitated, The Superior fired the semiautomatic again, hitting the precise same spot as before. "Now, please," he said politely, pointing the gun at Tony. Clint slowly bent over and deposited the weapons on the floor. He stood up with his hands raised.

"Thank you." The Superior cocked the gun.

Clint recoiled. "I dropped the weapons!" he reminded him.

"Yes, you did."

A bullet the size of a walnut plunged into Clint's left shoulder.

----------

The Black Widow woke up in the center of an underground stone coliseum lathered in blood-red sand. A decaying, dusty, old amphitheater like the ones from Ancient Rome, but with modern improvements like speakers, cushioned seats, and what looked like a hot dog stand that could be wheeled between rows. Men in dark Hydra uniforms were cleaning up. One was sweeping the stone floor, another was wiping down seats, and a third was scraping dried blood off the tan-colored stone wall. Janitors getting the place ready for the next event.

The next event was planned. Amateur black-and-white advertisements were taped to the round walls. Natasha was too far away from them to read the text, but close enough to recognize pictures of her and her teammates.

Other posters showed strangers, but she was certain that she had seen one or two of them before.

Another ad showed a full-body image of an enormous, bald-headed monster of a man who looked like a professional wrestler.

Another showed some sort of robot.

And a black bear. A black bear that was chewing on a caricature of Captain America.

She looked over her shoulder and spotted a sign that she could actually read:

“WELCOME TO THE RED SKULL ARENA

Tonight's Contestants:

THE AVENGERS

Buy a raffle ticket for a chance to be the first to punch the Avenger of your choice!”

"Uh oh," Natasha whispered. She cursed in Russian.

It was impossible to get up. Natasha could only make it as far as her knees before the chains binding her wrists to a steel floor-to-ceiling pole behind her yanked her back down. Her black uniform was intact except for a few stray punctures in the material and a burn mark on her left arm. She felt like someone had put a hula-hoop around her waist and then shrunk it to the size of a thimble. Every inch of skin was bruised, and bruised deep. "Hey," she tried to say. After clearing her throat and coughing, she yelled at the janitors, "HEY!"

"In my days at SHIELD academy," a male voice with a German accent said, "we entertained ourselves with vicious games of Yahtzee." A tall, slim, shaved-headed man with shallow facial hair and a monocle attached to his cheek emerged from behind Natasha. She recognized him right away as the Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. "I prefer Yahtzee, to be honest. Despite what SHIELD thinks of me, I am not a man who approves of violence. At least not the type that The Superior tends to inflict."

"According to SHIELD intelligence, you're hiding in Pakistan," Natasha said with zero emotion in her voice or face.

"Actually, I'm based in Sokovia at the moment," Strucker said. He casually slid his hands into his black pants pockets and cocked his head to the side. "But when I heard that The Superior set a trap for the Avengers, I just had to come see it for myself. I wanted to, well, spend some time with each of you before you die in this arena." Strucker dragged his toe through the red sand. "You probably can't tell from this angle, but this arena is literally shaped like a skull. Currently you're standing in its nose."

"Why am I here?" Natasha growled. She rattled her chains and the sound echoed throughout the amphitheater.

"That's a complicated existential question, Miss Romanoff. More appropriate for a priest than a mad scientist, I suspect." Natasha rolled her eyes but didn't respond. "You, Miss Romanoff, are here for our entertainment. For the troops' amusement. Consider yourself shanghaied into Hydra's version of the USO. That's how your beloved Captain America started out, as I recall."

"I don't tap-dance."

Strucker smiled. He had the teeth of a lifelong tobacco chewer. "It could be worse, you know," he said, gesturing at the advertisements. "A base full of overworked men away from their families, away from their wives. You should be grateful that we're not using you for anything…uncivilized."

Natasha dug her fingernails into her palms. "The first and only man who ever tried to be UNCIVILIZED with me was strangled to death between my thighs."

Strucker shrugged. "Not a bad way to go, all things considered." He reached down as if to touch her short, wavy red hair, but recoiled before his finger got too close to her teeth.

The rattles of Natasha's chains echoed. "Why am I HERE right NOW in this arena?"

A smile snaked across Strucker's face. "A test. We needed to know how quickly you could get out of those bonds." Natasha's lips pursed tight. "Tell me. Did you get out of them before or after I revealed myself?"

Busted.

Natasha shrugged off the chains and slowly stood up. "If you expect to hold the Avengers here," she whispered, "you'll have to do better than that." She heard the janitors put down their brushes and brooms and approach her from behind. Natasha could tell by the sound of their cocking guns that they were armed with sigs.

"Thank you for being such a helpful guinea pig. I'll be sure to get stronger restraints for my lab." Strucker began to walk around her. A carnivore observing his prey. "Tell me, Black Widow, you know who I am but do you know what I do?"

Natasha's eyes scanned the room. She counted every exit, every rafter, every loose brick, and took detailed mental notes. "You experiment on people," she said. "You make monsters."

"I prefer to call them miracles," Strucker said. "Enhanced Humans. That's why I'm here."

"You want to experiment on my team?" Natasha whispered. She folded her arms tight against her chest. "Turn us into miracles?"

Strucker snorted. "Turn you into a miracle? Quite the opposite. You six already are miracles. A god who can summon lightning. A scientist who transforms like Jekyll into Hyde. A super-soldier. An archer, super-human in his own way, who can hit a pinecone in a tree from a hundred yards away. A genius who created the most epic technology of our time. And you. An assassin turned hero. Strong, fierce, unstoppable. I intend to discover what makes you such a miracle, Miss Romanoff, and then I intend to strip you of it." Strucker's head cocked to the side. "From what I've heard about Dr. Banner, he will likely thank me for CURING him."

"He will likely kill you," Natasha hissed. "I'll kill you myself if you hurt him–if you hurt ANY of my boys—"

"Miss Romanoff, they're already hurt. I'm afraid you're the only member of your team who is even conscious at the moment. But I don't want you to worry about them. Not ALL of my test subjects die. By the end of my…treatments…you might be more powerful than you ever imagined."

"I don't want power," Natasha whispered. "Especially if I'm brainwashed to use it against innocent people. And it's two hundred."

Strucker's left eyebrow bounced. "Pardon?"

"Special Agent Clint Barton can hit a pinecone from two hundred yards away. I've seen him do it." She made eye contact with her captor and summoned all of her hatred into one glare. "I look forward to him putting an arrow through your skull."

Strucker sniffed. "Take her away," he ordered the armed janitors. "I'll see you in the morning, Miss Romanoff. I suggest you get some sleep. You'll need your strength. You all will."

----------

A jail the size of a basketball court sat directly beneath the Red Skull Arena. From a bird's eye view, it appeared to be divided into four round cells equidistant from an empty but well-lit space in the center. Those four circles of braided iron bars were each divided up into eight smaller ones shaped like triangles. Like pieces of a pie, Tony Stark decided. Like those little plastic triangles that you use in Trivial Pursuit. A wedge, he remembered. One of his earliest memories was of watching his parents play board games with some woman named Peggy. She had a British accent, bright red cheeks, and sad eyes…

The stone floor in each wedge slanted downwards towards a communal drain in the middle. That was the one place where the iron bars were far enough apart for Tony to squeeze his arm through. He stretched his hand out so far into the wedge opposite of him that he felt like his shoulder was going to pop off and roll down his back. "Come on," Tony growled. "Half an inch. Just half an inch." Tony shut his eyes and smashed his face against the bars. His index finger brushed against frighteningly hot skin. Stark recoiled–shocked–then reached out again and pinched a square inch of skin between his fingers. "Sorry, buddy," Tony said to deaf ears. Undoubtedly he was causing deep bruises as he pulled an arm towards him. Eventually he inched it close enough to reach the wrist. Tony felt for a heartbeat.

No pulse. Fear–terrible and terrific–made Tony dizzy. "No," he groaned, his chapped lips scraping against the rust coating the iron bars. "Dammit, no–no way–not after everything—"

A brief vibration. A beat so shallow that Tony thought he imagined it. He held his breath and counted the seconds until he felt the pulse again. Nearly 90 seconds passed but there it was. A heartbeat. Relief followed so closely by a spike in adrenaline caused energy to surge through Tony and he pulled on that arm hard until the unconscious body was lying face down next to the drain. Tony held the back of his hand against pale lips and felt a stir of air. The exhale was hot. Tony thought of dragon breath.

"Bruce." Tony counted to ten and then tapped his friend's cheek lightly with three knuckles. "Banner—BANNER!" he whispered. "Don't make me die alone in this damn dungeon."

"Asshole," a voice spat with an accent that Tony couldn't place. "I'm trying to sleep over here." Two wedges to Tony's left was a young man in a cerulean t-shirt and neon yellow sneakers sitting with his back against his iron cell door. Tony couldn't see the man's face, only the silhouette in shadow. The single lightbulb that hung from frayed wires above each cell was out in his.

"Is he alive?" asked a mousy voice. Huddled in the furthest corner of the cell directly on Tony's right was a young woman with ghost-pale skin. Her accent sounded similar to the man's. Her torn black shirt, skirt, and boots were the same color as her hair. "Your friend. He looks dead. Very dead."

Tony held his forefinger vertically against his lips. "Shhh," he hissed, "Mr. Grumpy over there is trying to sleep."

"You'd be grumpy too if you were starving to death," the man said. "Allow me to rephrase that. When you're starving to death, you'll be grumpy, too."

"I plan on getting out of here long before that happens," Tony assured him. Suddenly something squeezed his fingers. He started, imagining a rat the size of the Iron Man helmet, but it was just Bruce's hand in his.

"Assholes," Bruce parroted with his eyes still closed, "I'm trying to sleep over here."

Tony lay flat on his stomach and wrapped his arm halfway across his friend's shoulders. "Bruce, buddy, break out the green muscles and let's get out of here!" When the doctor didn't reply, Tony shook him again. "Bruce!"

Banner's eyes fluttered and his nostrils flared. "JARVIS, turn on the air conditioning," he called with slurred words. "It's hot in here, Tony. What gives?"

Grumpy snorted. Tony didn't have to see his face to know that there was an amused smirk on it. The woman sat up a little straighter to get a better look at the scene. "Bruce, we aren't in the Tower," Tony said. "It's Code Green time. Time for the Big Guy to make an appearance." Tony gently cupped his friend's chin and forced their faces as close together as the iron bars would allow.

Bruce's eyes finally met Tony's. A frown gradually appeared on his face. "Tony…I can't feel my legs."

Stark swallowed the lump in his throat. "Well, they're there, I assure you. You're intact. I just see a few burns."

"Clothes are scratchy…" Bruce mumbled.

"They put you in scrubs. Green ones, ironically. Lovely color. Really brings out your eyes." Panic stirred in Tony when Bruce's eyes started to slide shut again. He finally opened the door and let in the anxiety that had been knocking for several minutes. "Bruce, you gotta talk to me. Tell me what's wrong with you. Tell me what to do." Tony snaked his other hand through the bars so that he could hold his friend with both arms. Every joint in his body started to tremble. "Bruce, PLEASE."

Banner's lips parted. He licked them briefly, then sighed. "I forgot what this feels like."

"What WHAT feels like?"

"Sick…Feeling sick. Or injured. Or–or just hurt–I don't know. Pain always brings out the Other Guy so where…where the hell is he?" Bruce winced as he started to stretch his limbs. "There's something…Tony, I think there's something on my neck." Trembling fingers pointed at a spot near his Adam's apple.

Tony squinted in the dim light. "Oh, god."

"What?"

"Bruce you're—you're so UGLY."

"Tony."

"Sorry," Stark said. He angled his head to the side to get a better look. "Oh, GOD."

"Tony, stop fooling around."

"No, Bruce, it's—it looks like four, no, five needle marks. Your blood vessels look black like…Like there's some sort of poison in your system."

A look passed across Banner's face that Tony could only describe as Christmas morning excitement. "Will it kill me?" he asked eagerly.

Tony's face flushed red. "Dammit, Bruce, don't look at me like that."

Banner averted his eyes. "Like what?"

"Like getting killed is what you WANT."

Banner's attention settled on a dead bug floating in a still drop of muddy water. He switched topics. "Where are the others? Natasha. Natasha was with me. Is she ok?"

Tony wrapped his hands around the iron bars and strangled them. "I think Barton's alive," he said with a deadpan look. Bruce couldn't see the "we'll-talk-about-this-later, young man!" fire in his friend's eyes.

----------

Sam Wilson took the same route to work every morning. He picked up a coffee, black, from a generic café two blocks from his house and a bagel from a street vendor a quarter mile later. A few zigzags, one hopped fence, and a narrow alley later and he took a shortcut right through the cemetery. If there were stray twigs or dead leaves on Nick Fury's tombstone, he always brushed them off on his way past. Sometimes those leaves covered a handwritten note from Steve Rogers. Sometimes they hid an encrypted USB drive from Fury with a new lead on the Winter Soldier. Once Natasha Romanoff left him an envelope that exploded when he touched it, dousing him with neon glitter that–Sam discovered later that night on a date–also glowed in the dark.

And then, one day in mid-June, a man in a black suit was leaning against the headstone like he was waiting for a bus. Sam patted the holster on his jeans and told himself to act casual. When he was two rows away the man spoke without looking up from his phone. "If you're going to be a SHIELD agent you need to learn to vary your routine. The last thing you want to be is predictable." Sam took a bite of his bagel and kept walking. "He said to give you a password," the man said when Sam was within arm's reach. "Armadillo."

Sam dropped his breakfast in a trashcan. "I'm not a SHIELD agent," he informed the stranger.

The man smiled politely. "True," he acknowledged. "You're an Avenger."

Sam blinked. "I'm no Avenger. I'm just friends with a couple of them."

The stranger pocketed his cell phone and stood up straight. "When was the last time you heard from Steve Rogers?" A full minute passed and Sam didn't reply. "Good man. Fury was right about you. Cuttlefish."

Sam relaxed. Fury had changed the password from Armadillo to Cuttlefish only 24 hours before. "Tuesday around noon, Sir. He sent me a text."

The corners of the man's mouth twitched. "Almost a hundred years old and he's TEXTING?" he chuckled. Something about his body language made Sam feel completely at ease. "Does he use emoji’s?"

"No, Sir. He still types in complete sentences, punctuation included, and he spells out every word. I constantly have to explain some abbreviation or symbol that Tony Stark sent him."

A genuine grin. "Knowing Stark, he probably does that on purpose just to mess with Rogers."

Sam slid his hands into his pockets. His posture relaxed–shoulders loose, one hip slightly cocked. "You know them, Sir?"

"Oh, yes. And they know me. Well…They KNEW me. I have my own tombstone." The stranger patted Fury's headstone like it was an obedient dog. "Mine isn't quite as fancy. I'm a simple guy. I would've been fine with my name in crayon on a piece of cardboard but Tony Stark saw to it that I got an actual cemetery plot. If I ever see him again, I'll have to remember to thank him. Captain Rogers, too. He brought me flowers."

Sam cocked his chin to the side. "Forgive me, Sir, but what the hell do you want with me?"

The man took out his phone again. "Twelve hours ago this turned up in a sewer in Paris, France." He held up the screen and Sam saw what looked like a green and blue Scrabble tile. When Sam asked if he was supposed to know what it was the stranger shook his head. "After Clint Barton and other SHIELD agents were taken by Loki back in 2012, Fury commissioned Tony Stark to create indestructible, self-sustaining, satellite-linked locator beacons that could be inserted under the skin. Top personnel were tagged, including every Avenger. This beacon is supposed to be in Steve Rogers' armpit."

Sam took a closer look at the image and saw specks of red that could be blood. "He's missing?" the Falcon asked through clenched teeth.

"They all are," the stranger said gravely. "Rogers, Stark, Banner, Barton, Romanoff, even Thor. We need all hands on deck for this, Wilson. Since SHIELD fell there are so few of us left that—"

"That you have to stoop to recruiting rookies?" Sam asked with more sarcasm than he intended.

"…That we need people who are Avengers material themselves to help us find them," the stranger corrected him without raising or tightening his voice.

Sam nodded a simultaneous "sorry" and "thank you." "How can I help?"

From his opposite pants pocket, the stranger took out another black cell phone and tossed it to Sam. "You're on my team now. We're leaving for Europe in 45 minutes. I'm hopeful that by the time we land, the double agent I have inside Hydra's network will have news."

The stranger held out his hand and Sam shook it. "Understood. Agent…?"

That patient smile returned. "Director, actually. Director Phil Coulson. Welcome to SHIELD, Agent Wilson."

------------

The sun rose red in Prague. Maria Hill pulled her SHIELD uniform on over her pajamas as she sprinted down the hall. Despite the moldy beige carpet, peeling yellow wallpaper, and the stench of spoiled milk, the Keepsake Hotel was still the nicest place she'd stayed in all month. Stark Industries would undoubtedly pay for a five-star room, but Hill knew from experience that the fewer stars a hotel had, the less likely she was to get made. Maybe one day Tony Stark would understand the concept of "low profile."

A young SHIELD agent wearing a crooked tie opened up door #36 and let Hill in. Nick Fury stood beside a cracked television with his arms crossed. His king-sized bed obviously hadn't been slept in. A dozen mobile computer units sat up on the sweet-potato-colored blankets. "Good morning, sir," Hill greeted.

Fury's lips would disappear into each other if they were pursed any tighter. "Hardly, Agent Hill. Not only was Clint Barton nearly tortured to death, but it might've all been for NOTHING," Fury spat.

Hill winced in sympathetic pain for their friend. No wonder Fury wasn't sleeping. Barton was precious to them all. "Yes, sir."

"Agent Hill," greeted a blonde woman featured on the largest computer screen.

"Hi, Sharon—" Maria shook her head and rubbed her sleepy eyes. "Agent 13. You have news?"

Sharon Carter sighed and tossed a few stray locks of hair out of her eyes. "I'll share the good news first, if that's all right."

"Report," Fury growled impatiently.

"My team finished rounding up and interviewing the so-called civilians that were on that maglev train. A lot of them are associated with Hydra somehow or another. The rest were there because they were bribed or threatened or both. They don't know exactly where that train was headed, but we found a few lab tech interns who are familiar with those weapons the Avengers confiscated in Russia."

"And the bad news?"

Carter sat up straighter. "I received a message from Agent May, sir. Director Coulson's mole made contact with him from Tokyo at 0300. They have them. Hydra has the Avengers. They're alive. Stark and Romanoff and Steve–er, Captain Rogers…All six of them are alive."

Fury and Hill exchanged relieved looks that they immediately hid. "As far as bad news goes, I've heard worse," Hill said.

"They weren't killed on sight, but we might not like the reason why," Fury mused.

Carter nodded. "They're alive but…but none of them are exactly in one piece."

"So where are they?" Hill asked.

The left side of Sharon's face wrinkled in an apologetic look. "Unknown, ma'am, but Coulson's mole and the rest of that Hydra strike unit are on their way to Poland. In fact, chatter indicates that half of Hydra is moving in that direction."

"Why?" Hill and Fury asked simultaneously.

"Bad guy conference?" Sharon shrugged. "I wish I knew more. May said that the mole's message was brief and…vague."

"What else did he say?" Maria demanded.

"An antiquated phrase. We're not sure what to make of it." Sharon bit her lower lip. "He said ‘bread and circuses.’"

Hill, Carter, and the young agent all waited for Fury's interpretation. Nick stood frozen for a long minute, and then rubbed his one good eye with a calloused knuckle. "One of the reasons why two thousand years ago the citizens of the Roman Republic allowed Caesar to turn it into the Roman Empire was because they were guaranteed food, shelter, clothing, and safety. They should've been challenging Rome's morals, standing up against the political corruption, but instead they allowed themselves to be seduced, to be distracted by entertainment. Entertainment like the gladiator games."

"Entertainment?" Hill prompted.

Nick braided his fingers behind his back and dropped his chin to his chest. "Men fighting man and beast for fighting's sake–for entertainment. Thousands of animals, slaves, and other innocent people were killed."

"So, Hydra is the new Roman Empire?"

"Hydra is using Caesar's tactics in their recruitment. They promise their followers money, meals, safety, safety for their families…And to keep the masses from questioning if what they're doing is actually RIGHT, they distract them."

"Don't all armies?" the young agent in the corner suddenly asked. "Don't all armies promise that?"

"No," Fury said in a tone of voice that made everyone else's heartbeats quicken. "When you join SHIELD you're told that it will be hard work, that you'll have to make sacrifices, that safety is never guaranteed. And because you know you're doing what's RIGHT, you do it. You do the right thing because it's right, not because of money or safety. That's one of the things that differentiates SHIELD from Hydra."

"Gladiator games…" Carter's face filled the entire monitor when she leaned closer. "They're going to make them fight each other?"

"There's no way they'd go along with that," Hill said. "Captain America purposefully kill one of his teammates? He'd die first."

Fury snorted. "If they're lucky, they'll just be in a boxing ring with some goon who wants to prove how tough he is to his buddies."

"And if they're unlucky?" Sharon wondered.

The young agent in the tie paled. "The Enhanced…"

"We know that Hydra's scientists have been experimenting on people," Fury said. "Surgeries. Gene manipulations. Radiation. Mutations. Exposing subjects to Chitauri technology and Loki's staff…Enhancing them. Miracles, or monsters, depending on your point of view."

Maria Hill had seen the surveillance footage smuggled out of Strucker's labs. "I think I'd prefer the lions' den," she said.

"What better way to see how their creations measure up than to make them battle the world's greatest superheroes?" Fury wondered.

"But there are better ways," Carter insisted. "Smarter, more efficient ways, at least. If they want to see how their own version of a super-soldier compares to Steve, why not just–just compare them? In a lab? Why have all of your agents put their ops on the back burner and invite them to some sort of modern gladiator games?"

"For the same reason that the Avengers were captured, not killed," the young agent in the crooked tie said so quietly that he clearly meant it for his own ears only. "It's all for show."

"Agent Fitz?" Fury prompted.

Leo Fitz adjusted his uniform and took a cautious step closer to his superiors. He cleared his throat before he spoke. "Like you said, Sir, it's entertainment. Their sick version of it. They didn't kill the Avengers right away because they want to stage an elaborate execution. Not just to inspire their own troops, not just to promote their cause, not just to scare SHIELD, but to show the whole world what they're capable of. The public would react with fear if they heard that Captain America was killed, but they'll panic if every television screen on earth suddenly shows Cap getting torn apart by a monster." Fitz got up the courage to meet Fury's eyes. "It's a message. They're not afraid."

A sober mood settled on the room.

"So what do we do now?" Carter asked.

"We eat breakfast." Fury cocked his chin high, slowly loosened his arms, and slid his hands into his pants pockets. "And then we show Hydra that WE’RE not afraid."

----------

Grant Ward was having a "couldn't" day. As in he couldn't do this, and couldn't do that. He couldn't sleep on the plane ride from Tokyo to Poland. He couldn't figure out what was so special about the empty farmer's field they landed in until a maglev train suddenly appeared. And now, as he sat crowded in one of the train cars with a dozen other men wearing the Hydra crest on their uniforms, he couldn't take his eyes off of the dark red pool of blood on the floor. Whose blood was that? He knew it wasn't Romanoff or Banner's–neither of them ever made it onto the train. If Tony Stark was wounded, then any blood would be in his Iron Man armor. Ward didn't even know if Norse gods COULD bleed…

That left one of Ward's oldest and best friends. That was Clint Barton's blood.

The train slowed, then stopped without warning. The windowless door on the opposite side of the car opened. A chubby, red-faced guard that Ward had never seen before walked in. "Welcome to the Warsaw Armory, gentlemen," the guard announced. "Or should I say, welcome to the Red Skull Arena for what we hope will be Hydra's first annual Execution Week!"

"Hail Hydra!" Ward forced himself to shout along with everyone else.

Red-face took out what looked like a pack of playing cards from his jacket pocket. "The Opening Ceremony starts in an hour, so add your name to the raffle box right away."

"Raffle?" one of the agents sputtered. "What, are you giving out baskets of soap and candles as door prizes?" Everyone on the train chuckled.

Red-face grinned. "Better than that, boys. To start off the games, we're pulling five names from a box. Whoever's name we pull gets to punch an Avenger!"

"Which one?" half the car asked.

Red-face up his hands. "Your choice!"

Cheers rattled the walls.

Sixty minutes later, Grant was crowding into a massive underground amphitheater with a thousand other Hydra personnel. One of his oldest friends, a lab rat aptly named 'Skinny' who was in his graduation class at SHIELD academy, waved him over. "Haven't seen you in months, mate!" Skinny said in his Australian accent while he pulled Ward into a brief hug. "Can you believe we got the Avengers? Wild, huh?"

Grant summoned a casual but excited expression. "Never doubted we would, man. It was just a matter of time!"

"Too right," Skinny agreed. "Who are you gonna slug if your name gets pulled? I'd like to get my hands on Stark, that smug bastard."

"That's just because you're too scared you'll break your knuckles on Thor's chin!" Ward taunted.

"Oh, and I suppose you have the guts to try that?"

"Of course not. I'm going to kick him in the balls," Grant chuckled. Skinny held his palm up and accepted Grant's high-five.

----------

The chanting woke Clint Barton up. Nobody could sleep through the sound of a thousand people shouting, "Hail Hydra! Hail Hydra! Hail Hydra!" When Clint opened his eyes he found his nose inches from bright red sand. His shoulder throbbed. Someone had dressed the bullet wound but the bandage was loose and leaking. Somehow, when he noticed the blood dripping down his body, the sound of it plopping on the floor was louder than everything else.

Everything except for Natasha's voice.

"CLINT!"

Barton rotated his head to the left. Natasha was upside down–wait, no–HE was upside down. Clint tried to put his hands beneath his torso but they were behind him, chained around a steel pole. So were his ankles. Chained and nearly numb. When he wiggled them a few pins and needles fired across his nerve endings. Focusing on his stomach muscles instead, Clint held his torso steady and slowly leaned back until his head rested against the pole. A few ungraceful wiggles later and he got his feet under him, steadied himself, and slowly stood. He was briefly grateful that he was tied up when the scene swam and the blood loss caught up with him so quickly that he almost blacked out.

"Clint, stay with me."

"Natasha…" Natasha again. Stay awake for Natasha, for the team, Barton ordered himself. Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake…

"Hail Hydra!" a thousand voices shouted, and then instantly went silent at some unspoken cue.

Footsteps on Barton's right. Directly on his right, also secured to a pole, was Stark, then Rogers, then a semi-conscious Banner and a very unconscious (and drooling) Thor. The one-eared man—The Tycoon's brother, he recalled—walked out of the first row of many that made up the amphitheater. Barton couldn't begin to count how many Hydra agents surrounded his team. Agents with pounding fists and angry faces, all seemingly staring at him. Somewhere a speaker squawked, and the one-eared man began to speak into a microphone clipped to his collar.

"My brothers! My sisters!" his voice boomed, echoing off the walls. "We promised you that the Avengers would pay for challenging Hydra's new world order. Now we have them–we have them all–and this week each and every one of you will have a hand in the well-deserved tortures leading up to their executions!"

The chanting started up again. "Su-per-ior! Su-per-ior! Su-per-ior!" Clint glanced at Natasha but she shook her head. She didn't know the man—The Superior—either.

The Superior walked down the line. He clipped Thor's chin and Banner's cheek with his elbow. He kept his distance from Rogers, Stark, and Clint himself which was smart, because Barton was determined to head-butt the man when he got close enough. When he reached Natasha he gave her a smile that made her flinch, disgusted. "Who in here wants to throw the first punch?" The Superior asked the audience. The noise got so loud that Clint winced. His ears began to ring.

Another man exited the first row. This one, Barton knew. Strucker. He held a dented metal box that seemed to be overflowing with slips of paper. The crowd shushed when the Superior reached in and plucked out the first piece. He read the name, smiled to himself, and then tossed the slip over his shoulder. Barton watched it flutter to the ground inches from Natasha's feet.

The name on the sheet was unknown to Clint. Abraham Plantz.

"The first name," The Superior shouted, "and the first one who gets to throw a punch at an Avenger, is Pietro Maximoff!"

------------

The sprinkle transformed into a downpour around the time that James Rhodes and Happy Hogan pulled up to the abandoned amusement park somewhere in southern Vermont. Lit by the moonlight and headlights only, Pepper Potts stood soaking wet beside the broken front gate with her hands planted on her hips. Both men started yelling at her even before they got out of the SUV.

"Pepper, for God's sake, I've been looking everywhere for—"

"Tony goes missing and then you go missing, too—"

"—thought you were kidnapped."

"—were checking local hospitals."

"—why are we here?"

"—what does this have to do with anything?"

"—next time call us before you go off on your own!"

Pepper waited patiently for her two friends to get all of the shouting out of their systems. When their words finally died out she cocked an eyebrow and asked, "Done?" Hogan and Rhodes bristled. Both looked like they were about to start yelling again but Pepper cut them off. "Sorry, I shouldn't have phrased that as a question. You're done. Now come on, boys. There's a cache of Stark tech under this property that could help SHIELD's rescue mission, and I need your help with the combination lock." Pepper shouldered open the gate and marched past a pile of overturned hotdog carts.

The boys scrambled after her. "Pep, I don't know the combination," said Rhodes.

"Neither do I," said Hogan.

"I know it," she assured them, "I just need your help turning the dial."

Hogan imagined the tiny knob on his own safe at home. "That, uh, that makes little to no sense, Pep."

"It's a big dial." Pepper led the way past an ancient wooden roller coaster nearly consumed by vines, and what looked like a pirate ship that now held dozens of animal and bird nests. A couple blocks later, Pepper stopped in front of a rusty, antique merry-go-round. "It's just three digits," she said. "4, 13, 22."

Rhodey walked up to the nearest plastic horse. The original gold and blue paint was almost destroyed by the weather, but the number '1' on its side appeared to be brand new. As was the '2' on the next horse and the '3' on the one after that. "This, uh, this is a big combination lock. Unnecessarily big."

"Lots of things are like that with Tony," Pepper said with a fond tint to her voice. She rolled up her sleeves and smoothed her hair out of her white face. "All right, guys. Let's start pushing."

----------

Tony Stark loved watching Looney Tunes cartoons as a child. Not because of the jokes. Not because of the cute characters. His favorite thing to do was count how many times the show violated the laws of physics (and then imagine how he could do the same). He gave himself a concussion more than once trying to pass through a solid wall just by drawing a black circle on it. So he was delighted – for just a moment – when Pietro Maximoff's name was announced and something barely visible started doing laps around the Red Skull Arena like the roadrunner, churning up red sand in its wake. Tony would be entertained if he and his teammates weren't chained up in an arena surrounded by a thousand people who wanted them dead. The man – one of Strucker's Enhanced, Tony realized – stopped in front of him. The crowd of Hydra goons began to chant, "Quick-silver! Quick-silver! Quick-silver!" Tony recognized the man's silhouette, and his clothes. They were cellmates in the dungeon beneath their feet. Now Tony could see the man's face–pale skin, extra-dark circles around the eyes, small chin, pointy nose, long forehead, white lips, and hatred in everything from his body posture to his glaring eyes. "Uh," Stark stammered, "do I know you?"

Pietro Maximoff's fists shook. "I've wanted this for so long," he growled with his accented voice. "One punch isn't enough. It just isn't enough…"

Tony looked to his left, searching for recognition in Clint or Natasha's eyes, but they looked just as surprised as he was by this stranger. He looked to his right but got little help there. Thor was still unconscious, Banner nearly so, and Steve's attention was on the bindings attaching them all to the steel poles. Steve's face turned red and his muscles bulged as he strained against the shackles.

"Only one punch, Pietro," The Superior reminded Maximoff. "We have all week to kill him. It's about the journey, my friend, not the destination."

"I'm not your friend," Pietro said under his breath. He marched forward until he stood nose to nose with Tony. "I've imagined this a million times," he hissed. "Imagined hitting you so hard that your face turned inside out. But after watching you with your teammate…" Pietro smirked. "I don't want to punch you, Tony Stark. I want to HURT you."

Something in the man's voice made Tony go cold. Rogers must have sensed it, too, because he went still and gave Tony a frantic look. Pietro grinned a maniac's grin, and then slowly started to shuffle sideways to his left. "What are you doing?" Tony asked. "Hey – unless you're Mr. Fantastic, I doubt your arms can stretch long enough to reach me from there."

Pietro stopped in front of Banner. His eyes twinkled as he enjoyed the suspense. "I always thought you didn't have a heart for anyone but yourself, Stark. But you do. You do, don't you?" Pietro gently slid a forefinger beneath Bruce's chin and tilted his head up. Bleary, confused eyes blinked, squinted, and blinked some more.

"Hey—" Tony yanked so hard on his bindings that they broke the skin. "Hey, come on, kid. If you want to hurt me then hurt ME!" Pietro chuckled at the reaction he was getting. He grabbed a handful of Bruce's hair and pulled until they were eye to eye. "Stop touch — leave him alone! Whatever problem you have with me, leave my friends out of it! Hey — HEY!"

Bruce straightened up at Tony's tone of voice. He looked around and for the first time saw where he was and what was going on. "Tony—?" he started.

The rest of Quicksilver's body could move as fast as his legs. Nobody in the entire amphitheater saw the punch, just the consequences of it. A molar flew out of Bruce's mouth, blood trailing behind it like a comet's tail. His head snapped back over his right shoulder and slammed so hard against the pole that Tony felt the vibration in his own body. Bruce went limp, and still, and Tony didn't release the breath he held until he was sure that his friend was just unconscious, not dead. When he was certain, he started spitting so many profanities at Maximoff that even Natasha blushed.

The Superior led the rest of Hydra in a round of applause. "Bravo," he chuckled, shaking Pietro's hand with both of his. The Enhanced man gave the Avengers one last smirk before returning to his seat beside a woman who Tony recognized as his other cellmate.

Strucker raised the box of names over his head. The crowd stood up and began to cheer extra-loud. The Superior milked the excitement for nearly five minutes before, with the panache of a circus ringmaster, he plucked out a second name. He smiled at the tiny paper. When he tossed it aside, Tony saw a name on it that he didn't recognize: Matthew Stories.

"The second one to get to punch an Avenger," The Superior said into his microphone, "is also one of our most influential supporters. Gentlemen, ladies, I give you Senator John Stern!"

Tony hung his head. "Oh, shit."

Stern stumbled out of a VIP box on the top level of the amphitheater. His bloated face was bright red. Whether from rage or alcohol or both, Tony wasn't sure. Audience members started calling out "Hit Stark!" and "Kill Iron Man!" and every other variation of Tony's name and pain. Tony knew that Stern needed little encouragement. No one else on the team had humiliated the senator. Tony braced himself by tightening his ab muscles and putting on his most winning smile. No way in Hell was a douchebag like Stern going to see fear in his eyes.

"You shit of piece," Stern said when he reached Stark. "I mean you – you crap of piece – no, piece of crap. You prick, I'll kill you!" Stern swung wildly and missed. He stumbled against Tony, who caught the full brunt of the stench of alcohol on the ex-senator's breath. Stern braced his left arm against Tony's ribcage, swayed slightly, and then swung again. His fist barely missed Tony's face once, but connected with it the second time–and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth… Tony spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

Steve's face flushed as red as Stern's. "You said one punch – one!" Cap bellowed at The Superior.

"That is the rule, Senator," The Superior said. Chuckled, actually. He and Strucker made no move to break up the punching bag session. The crowd was on its feet and shouting for blood, more blood. Another minute passed before Stern finally wore himself out. He spat at Tony's feet and then stumbled back to his seat.

The next guy The Superior called for was unfortunately quite sober and capable of a hell of a punch. The man was Middle Eastern with a face scarred by burns. Tony went still – frozen solid – jaw hanging open as the man descended from the seats. "Full circle," he murmured. When Steve asked what he meant by that, Tony said, "Raza. Iraqi war lord. He's – he's the man who tortured and imprisoned me in a cave all those years ago… In a way, he's responsible for Iron Man."

Raza was uninterested in entertaining the crowd or exchanging words. His dark eyes never strayed from Tony's as he marched forward. At ten feet away he broke into a run. His first punch broke Tony's nose. Strucker, The Superior, Steve, Clint, and Natasha all heard it. Raza didn't stop there. His next hit took the air out of Tony's lungs, the third caused him to fold in half, exposing the vulnerable back of his neck to Raza's elbow. Steve, Clint, and Natasha tried to shout over the roar of the crowd but they were ignored. A good minute or two passed by before The Superior summoned a few of the Hydra guards to drag Raza out of the arena.

Steve squirmed, trying to get even a centimeter closer to his bleeding teammate. "Tony, are you all right?"

Stark coughed. "My grandma – hugs harder - than he – hits," Tony managed between unsteady breaths. He summoned a cocky grin for Steve's sake.

Cap saw right through it. "Oh, Tony…"

"Justin Hammer!" The Superior had already pulled another name, which he didn't even pretend to read. A tall, skinny man in a tailored suit emerged from the same loge as Stern. He descended the stone stairs slowly, casually, fists in his pants pockets and tie hanging lose around his neck.

Tony paled. Looked like he'd seen a ghost, Steve thought, recalling the phrase. "Oh, come on," Stark murmured at the sight of Hammer. He coughed and expelled another glob of blood. "You've got to be kidding…"

"You know this guy, TOO?" Steve asked. "Who is he?"

"He's supposed to be in jail," Tony said. He sighed and sagged against the pole. "That's, uh…That's all that matters at the moment…"

"It's Hammer time!" Justin shouted into The Superior's microphone as he walked by. He pumped his fist and waited for the laughter, the applause, but all he got was silence punctuated by a few groans and one prominent "boo." "Yeah!" Hammer said at half the volume and half the excitement. He let his fist slowly fall to his side. Suddenly he charged at Tony. Instead of punching him he barreled into Stark's stomach like a running back. The crowd was instantly on his side again. He got the laughter and cheers and standing ovation he wanted.

"Don't you dare," Steve warned when Hammer drew back one fist to hit Tony again. Hammer glared at him, cowered a bit, and then pretended that his hand was in the air to brush his hair back instead. He lowered his eyes and retreated.

Tony slid down to his knees. "Awesome… Awesome day," he grunted.

One last name. "Grant Ward!"

------------

"Like I'm 16," Melinda May growled. "Better yet, 10. Explain it to me like I'm 10 so that I can explain it to Director Coulson like he's 6."

Jane Foster adjusted the collar of her white lab coat, pulled her brown hair behind her ears, and exhaled loudly. "We don't have time for this," she insisted. "Thor and the others have been missing for 72 hours and my team's flight for New York City leaves in 90 minutes so just — just tell whoever's in charge of the investigation to contact me himself."

Agent May leaned forward so that her entire schoolmarm-stern face filled up Jane's laptop screen. On Jane's left and right, Darcy and Erik cowered backwards. Selvig's butt bumped into Jane's empty coffee cup and knocked it to the hard floor. "Explain," May repeated, stretching the word out to three syllables. "Then I can decide if your plan is even worth mentioning to my superiors."

Jane's nostrils flared. "I've been analyzing the data from the Convergence non-stop for months. Although I haven't field-tested my theories yet, the math and the physics make sense — well, now they make sense. And I'm convinced that we can open up a temporary artificial wormhole." Jane paused briefly for dramatic effect. "We can open up a portal to Asgard, or to any of the other realms."

May didn't blink. "Dr. Foster, there is no evidence to suggest that Hydra has the ability to take the Avengers off-planet."

"I know." Jane straightened her spine and lifted her chin. "From Asgard we can open up another portal back to earth — anywhere we want. If you know where Thor is then we can exit the wormhole in the same room… Ideally."

"Ideally?"

"Give or take twenty or thirty yards," Darcy said, pushing herself up onto her tiptoes so that she could see May over Jane's shoulder. "And hopefully we won't, you know, appear inside a wall." Both Jane and Erik gave Darcy a look and the younger woman shrunk back down.

May began to chew on her lower lip, noticed that she was doing it, and then wiped her mouth with her fist. "How many people could pass through that wormhole at once?"

Jane glanced at Erik, who shrugged. "As many as you need," Jane said. "As many as you need to rescue Thor. Our equipment won't be able to keep the portal open for longer than a minute, though."

"It's smarter than just knocking on the front door," Selvig said.

May considered it. "This portal goes both ways, yes? In sixty seconds we could send a squad through, snatch up our people, and walk right back out, correct?"

Jane winced. "No, ma'am. An artificial wormhole would be a one-way street only. I could go through the portal with your team and set up another one, but that would take time."

"Minutes," Selvig explained. "A quarter of an hour at best."

"So once they get in they'd still have to fight their way back out," May concluded.

"Better than fighting in and out," Darcy said.

May suddenly craned her neck far to the left and spoke to someone she referred to as "Simmons." Smiling, Jane turned to her two colleagues and said, "You better pack your passports."

"Huh?" Darcy's wide eyes stretched open even further. "Jane, I left mine at the hotel."

Jane took her keys out of her pocket and tossed them. "Hurry."

Selvig sat down in Jane's office chair and folded his hands in his lap. "You're sure?"

Jane felt the twinkle in the corner of her own eye. "Trust me."

Darcy shrugged. "Trusting you," she murmured, hardly sounding convinced. The office door shut behind her right when May returned to the video call.

"My people have reserved a private plane that will take you directly to Minsk," May declared. "I want you there and ready for debrief in three hours."

Jane's eyebrows folded into a frown. "Ma'am, we're in Seattle! It'll take us at least—"

"Not in one of our jets." May assured them. "An escort will meet you in ten minutes. Be ready." Without a nod, much less a goodbye, May ended the call and Jane's laptop went black.

Selvig slumped in his chair. "Jane, there's something I have to tell you."

Jane sensed a panic attack brewing. "What's that?" she asked gently.

Selvig rubbed both of his eyes with both fists. "If I get brainwashed and abducted by an alien again, I'm retiring!"

----------

Wanda Maximoff often wondered if Strucker gave normal humans miraculous abilities, or if he just made an innate ability miraculous. Her brother, Pietro, always was a quick runner. Not Olympics quick, but better than anyone else in their town. And Wanda, Wanda was always perceptive. When she saw someone she saw the whole person — past and present, personality traits and character flaws, desires and fears.

In the arena she was supposed to go with Pietro. She was supposed to get a shot at Tony Stark, too. But she stayed seated. She stayed seated because in the prison cell she saw Tony Stark the Whole Person. She saw him bleed when he fought his way to his teammate. She saw him cradle Bruce Banner and in that instant he was no longer the one-dimensional arrogant monster who killed her parents. He was… More.

Even if she wasn't Enhanced, she would still see the scene in front of her at the Red Skull Arena for what it really was.

When The Superior called his name, Grant Ward lowered his head and raised his arms, clapped along with the crowd, and then stuffed his fists into his pockets as he casually sauntered down the stone staircase to the red sand. That's what everyone else in the arena saw. Wanda saw that Ward lowered his head to hide a brief look of panic. She saw that his hands were trembling before they safely hid in his pockets. She saw that the casual saunter was a clever stall tactic, giving him time to get his thoughts together.

Ward nodded and smiled at Strucker and The Superior as he passed. Everyone else interpreted it as a gesture of gratefulness and respect. Wanda didn't have to read Ward's thought to know that he was actually communicating a desire to prove something to them. "I accept your challenge," Ward seemed to say. "I'll show you."

The crowd cheered when Ward wrapped his left hand around Thor's neck and his right around Banner's. He pretended to strangle the two unconscious Avengers, but Wanda noticed that he was actually checking for a pulse. Ward feigned a punch at Rogers, then acted like he was going to kick Stark in the balls, much to the audience's delight. Wanda noticed that he was actually checking their reflexes, their reactions, like you would do if you suspected someone was drugged.

Hawkeye howled in pain when Ward reached him and grabbed his wounded shoulder. The crowd thought he was torturing the archer by poking at the bullet wound but Wanda noted that after their encounter, Barton was no longer dripping blood. Ward had tightened the bandage. Wanda wondered how long it would've been before Barton passed out from so much blood loss. More than likely, Ward saved his life.

When Ward reached Natasha, he took a container out of his pocket the size of his palm. It was a tin of mints, judging by the symbol on the label. Ward popped one white, nickel-sized mint into his mouth and made a show of chewing it. Some in the crowd realized what he was about to do and the cheers got louder. On Wanda's left, Pietro chuckled and pressed his fist against his mouth. "Is this dude suicidal?" He elbowed Wanda and waggled his eyebrows.

The kiss that Ward planted on Natasha caught her off guard. Her lips were already parted, and his kept them that way. She regained her composure almost instantly, and head-butted Ward so hard that he fell to one knee. Half of the audience groaned and the other half cheered. Ward raised his fists in victory and shouted, "Worth it!" A friendly gauntlet of high-fives waited for him as he returned to his seat.

A smile twitched in the corner of Wanda's lips. That mint Ward put in his mouth wasn't actually chewed. And he used that open-mouthed kiss to pass it—whatever it was—to Romanoff. "Clever," Wanda whispered.

"Hmm?" Pietro glanced at her. "You say something?"

Wanda spoke in a whisper. "Pietro, you got your revenge — our — our revenge. We got what we wanted. We're done with Hydra now, right?"

"Shhh!" her brother hissed. "Keep your voice down, dummy!" Pietro spoke even softer as the crowd around them calmed down, sat down. "Our last escape attempt didn't exactly work, Wanda. You ended up in a steel net and I ended up with a concussion."

"We'll talk below. We'll talk in the cages, Pietro."

"Round one will be this time tomorrow," The Superior announced. "Get your votes in by 1800 hours. Who do you want to see fight to the death?" Men pumped their fists and screamed out names that Wanda didn't recognize.

"The cages we share with them?" Pietro exclaimed, gesturing at the Avengers. "You want them to overhear us?"

"No." Wanda shook her head extra-slowly. "I want them to lead us."

Pietro snorted. "Maybe you failed to notice, but they're prisoners here the same as us —worse than us. Strucker's going to experiment on them, The Superior's concocting some sort of gladiator games… Wanda, we're freaks, even to them. They're the last people in the world who will help us."

"Didn't say they would help us," Wanda clarified. "I said they'd lead us. Lead the way out." She smiled at her brother. "They're not hostages. At least not as much as Hydra thinks they are."

----------

At 2am in the Kola Peninsula of Russia, three figures left their snowmobile behind and sprinted down a sparse hill to a pair of snow-sprinkled boulders. Two peeked over and around the rocks with binoculars while the third opened a laptop, took some sort of wand-shaped tool out of her coat pocket, and started taking readings. Like giant fireflies, half a dozen black helicopters hovered over rundown, crumbling buildings and shone spotlights down on workers using plain-old shovels to clear away debris.

Skye tugged her scarf away from her white lips. "What is this place?" she asked between chattering teeth.

Bobbi Morse's breath froze in midair when she spoke. "If Natasha Romanoff was here she could tell us for sure, but if I had to guess—"

"It's the Superdeep," Jemma Simmons reported. She squinted, struggling to read her computer screen in the extra-dim light. "According to the GPS we're at the old Kola Superdeep Borehole facility."

Skye pocketed her binoculars and slid down beside Jemma. "A borehole? Like, what, a drill? Hydra's drilling for oil?"

"No, it's a geological research facility—or at least it used to be. Scientists drilled down twelve thousand feet—over seven and a half miles. Somewhere in that debris is the entrance to the deepest manmade hole on earth!"

Bobbi whistled. "So one wrong step and you fall straight down to Hell, huh?"

"All of the drill holes were sealed years ago," Jemma announced. "The researchers didn't find anything unexpected, anything particularly valuable…It's just a hole!"

"Well, they're trying pretty hard to find that hole." Bobbi adjusted the focus on her binoculars and shifted her gaze to the left. "I count at least fifty people, not counting the flyboys in the helicopters."

Skye huffed warm air into her palms but couldn't feel it through her gloves. "When Steve Rogers was frozen for eighty years, is this how cold he was?"

"You're such a wuss," Bobbi said with a smirk in the corner of her white lips.

Jemma's face was nearly frozen in a frown. "Every Hydra vehicle on the continent is heading to Warsaw. Every plane, every truck—"

"Every bicycle," said Bobbi.

"Every pogo stick," Skye piled on.

"…except for the same Maglev that trapped the Avengers…Ward says it's on its way to these coordinates—why?"

"I don't know why, but it's right on schedule." Bobbi tapped Skye, who tapped Jemma, and all three women peeked over the boulders.

Seemingly gliding on top of the snow, what remained of the Maglev erupted through the fog of settling snow and into the helicopters' spotlights. Agents jogged forward with flashlights and lanterns and directed the train west. It stopped abruptly, then shrugged off the caboose. Two helicopters dipped closer and dropped chains like fishing nets. After the caboose was lassoed, the helicopters lifted it into the air. The rear one flew higher, tilting the train car forward.

"What are they doing?" Skye wondered out loud.

"I think they unsealed the borehole—" Bobbi began. All three women gasped when something metallic suddenly slid out of the car, tumbled down and disappeared into the earth. The Hydra agents cheered.

"Oh my God." A red light started blinking on Jemma's equipment. "Oh my God they just—but how could they—he must have dropped it—they didn't move it they just moved the—oh, that's clever—"

"Simmons!" Skye hissed.

"…part of their plan! Separate them from their weapons, of course — how can we get it back — we can't get it back —"

"Simmons!" both Bobbi and Skye barked.

Jemma jumped. "There — there's a unique radiation associated with — with Asgardian technology — specifically with Mjolnir —"

"What?"

"That was the hammer!" Simmons sputtered. She pointed a shivering forefinger at the ground. "Hydra just dropped Thor's hammer into the DEEPEST hole on earth!"

Two beeps were suddenly followed by two more. Three cement trucks rolled onto the scene. They circled around the borehole and started dumping in pudding-like globs of gray cement.

"Oh, shit," Skye whispered.

"Son of a bitch," hissed Bobbi.

"Oh bugger, we're dead," Simmons squeaked.

Skye snorted. "Not yet but we just lost one hell of a weapon."

"No," Jemma whispered, "I mean we're dead."

Guns cocked. Skye and Bobbi whirled around.

They were surrounded.

----------

Even from behind, the telltale downward tilt of Heimdall's head told Lady Sif that he already knew what she was going to report. Though tempted to just return to her chambers without speaking to her friend, Sif ordered herself to cock her chin high and continue towards the guardian's perch. "Do you believe now?" she called to him. "Do you at least acknowledge what the rest of us do — that the Allfather is not behaving like himself?"

Heimdall withdrew his gaze from the Bifrost Bridge and slowly rotated to face her. "I am loyal to Odin," he reminded her in his rumbling voice. "No matter his… quirks. What man's character does not evolve in old age?"

"Quirks?" Sif folded her arms against her armored chest and spread her legs shoulder-length apart. "Perhaps you have been listening to the Midgardians for too long, old friend. And the Allfather's personality has not EVOLVED. It transformed — SWIFTLY — right after Thor returned to earth. Many of us can see it. Why can't you?"

Heimdall's eyes fixed on a violet nebula visible through the enormous window. "Thor left by his own volition. He wishes to be independent, to live his own life. What happens to him on earth is not our concern."

"Not our concern?" Sif kicked the golden arch and the sound vibrated through the hall. "Those mortals attacked Thor — you saw it yourself. They poisoned him and they separated him from Mjolnir. If that is not reason enough to go to Midgard to assist him, what is?"

"Odin forbids it. That is reason enough NOT to."

"So we just let those mortals keep him prisoner? Let him DIE?"

Heimdall blinked. "What would you have me do?"

Sif took a deep breath to calm herself. "Odin won't let me take a legion of warriors to rescue his son, but he never forbade me from going on my own. Open the Bifrost. Send me back to Midgard… Again."

Heimdall allowed a brief smile to pass across his lips. "Shall I reunite you with the one they call Coulson?"

Sif smiled. "You're watching him right now, aren't you?"

"He is working tirelessly to find and free Thor. He has not slept in many days."

"Sounds like he needs some help."

Heimdall nodded, conceding. "Indeed."

----------

Watching helplessly while the unconscious Tony was released from his bonds and allowed to collapse face down in the red sand was, somehow, more frustrating to Steve than seeing his friend beaten. "This is how you treat prisoners of war?" he growled at The Superior, who could barely hear him over the final jeers from the Hydra agents as the arena audience emptied.

"This is how we treat our enemies," The Superior said with an extravagant shrug. "Would you like to see how we treat our traitors?"

"Steve?" Natasha called. She and the others were being dragged through a tunnel on the opposite side of the prison. "St—" She disappeared from sight along with Tony, Clint, Thor, and Bruce. Cap was alone.

"Double check his cuffs, Skinny," The Superior advised a tall, slim guard, who yanked Steve's wrists so far behind his back that his shoulder nearly popped out. "Can't have him trying to escape."

"Look at 'em, Sir," the guard said with an accent Steve couldn't identify. "Bloke can barely walk in a straight line. Won't be putting my week's pay on him."

The Superior marched ahead of them into the tunnel "You might after you see the state of his competition."

Steve stopped so suddenly that Skinny rear-ended him. "Competition? If you think you can make me fight someone just for the sake of fighting — just for your amusement —"

"What I think," The Superior growled, "is that you'll fight in self-defense. I simply have to provide someone you have to protect yourself from."

A room of cages nearly identical to the one the Avengers were being held in waited for Steve at the end of the hall. Strucker was already there, standing in the doorframe of an open cell. A figure huddled in the far corner under a thick blanket. "Are you sure about this?" the baron asked The Superior. "Would it not be more entertaining to reunite them in the arena?"

"It would be if I knew for sure they would try to kill each other," The Superior responded in a whisper that Steve's super-hearing could still decipher. "You've seen the security footage from the Smithsonian. He might remember him by now."

Skinny shoved Rogers into the cell and locked the door behind him. The figure in the corner stood slowly, shrugged off a tattered black blanket, and turned to face Steve. Lifeless, bloodshot eyes widened. Both gloved hands tightened into fists.

Steve's knees nearly gave out. He sagged back against the prison bars and gasped, "BUCK?"

Bucky Barnes bared his teeth, flexed his mechanical arm, crouched like a lion ready to pounce, and barreled towards Steve like a linebacker.

----------

Natasha Romanoff HATED peppermint. The Black Widow program always served peppermint Rice Krispie treats for dessert, so even the faintest whiff of it made Natasha's skin crawl and her stomach churn. Despite her several pleads (and multiple threats), Fury never switched the flavor of the SHIELD "bluff-mints" to cherry or tangerine. Therefore, it was his fault, really, that Natasha nearly vomited when Grant Ward launched the candy into her mouth.

Once Natasha regained her composure she used her tongue to pin the large mint against her left cheek. She fought the urge to swallow the saliva filling her mouth, instead allowing it to drench and gradually wear away the hollow mint. No bubblegum or chocolate or burst of sour sugar waited for her. Instead she found a tiny ball of coiled metal. Expertly she used her teeth and tongue to reshape the quarter-inch string of smooth Vibranium flat, and then shove it in the tight space between two of her molars. Having Vibranium on her person was as good a bug as any. SHIELD knew that the Avengers were missing by now, which meant that every Stark Industries satellite in the skies was scanning the globe for telltale signs of them: the strange readings that only Thor's hammer gave off, the walking nuclear reactor that was Banner's irradiated blood, and the Vibranium that made up Cap's shield—and now Natasha's teeth. Even if that plan didn't work out, there were still a dozen ways that Natasha Romanoff could use the Vibranium as a tool or a weapon, or both.

The guards took the Avengers through a door on the opposite side of the arena. Natasha had been trained to notice everything, so she tried to memorize how many weapons she saw, how many exits, etcetera, but her attention kept returning to her teammates. Tony was a human bruise. Thor and Banner, also unconscious, made up the center of the pack, followed by Natasha and the stumbling, half-conscious Barton. Once they passed under the arch and out of the arena, trailing red sand brightened by their own blood, the guards took a sharp left. The unconscious Avengers were tossed into the pit in the floor, followed by Clint. Natasha anticipated a ten-foot drop. It was twenty. She landed on Hawkeye, driving his wounded shoulder into the dirt floor.

"Oh Clint, I'm sorry." Natasha rolled off her friend, then leaned over him and cupped his cheeks. "Clint? CLINT!"

Barton's eyes fluttered. "Tasha, do you smell peppermint…?" His jaw quivered. He shuddered, went limp, and left Natasha all by herself.

---------

It was hunger that woke Clint up, but the smell of banana bread that opened his eyes. For a quarter of a second he thought he was back in his bed at Avengers Tower. He was comfortable, and the pillow beneath his right cheek was warm. A hand held an almond-sized clump of banana bread and a familiar voice asked him if he felt like eating. Clint licked his lips and nodded. After a few mouthfuls of bread, he drank half a bottle of water, caught his breath, and then downed the other half. He shut his eyes once more, and lay there on his back for a long minute. Then he reached up, groping for human contact. Natasha's hand felt as light and fragile as a hummingbird. Clint burrowed his nose into the soft inside of her leg and whispered, "I need a shower."

Natasha snorted. "I need a drink."

Clint frowned at the scarlet bandages around his shoulder. "Did you rip up Thor's cape?"

"It was either his cape or my shirt."

Tony Stark sat Indian-style but slumped at Clint's boots. His eyes brightened and he shifted an ice pack away from his swollen upper lip. "We should vote on that next time, Romanoff." The dirt wall behind Tony stretched 20 feet high. Clint wondered if they were all in a Hulk-sized grave, if shovels were about to appear and begin to bury them alive. On the other side of a battery-powered lantern sitting in the middle of their little circle like a campfire, Banner and Thor were also awake and sitting up, neither looking any better than Clint felt.

"Steve?" Clint croaked. He tried to look around but he lifted his head too fast and saw nothing but stars.

"He's not here. We haven't seen him since last night," Natasha explained. "Since the arena," she clarified.

"How do you fare, Hawkeye?" Thor asked. His usual earthquake rumble of a voice sounded weak and hollow.

Clint attempted to sit up again, taking it slower this time. He braced himself on his uninjured arm with too much momentum, and both Tony and Natasha had to hurry to steady him. "Might've lost a little blood…" Clint slurred.

Bruce's gaze was on Natasha. "It's been a couple hours," he said to her. "If you're still feeling all right, then it might be worth the risk."

"Huh?" Clint grunted. "What risk?"

Natasha retrieved a brown paper bag from behind her back. "Someone tossed us a little care package during the night. Food, water, some supplies." The Black Widow fished around in the sack before she found what she was looking for: an assortment of pill bottles.

"Someone?"

"None of us saw who it was," Thor explained. "We heard footsteps, and then the sky rained banana bread."

Tony chuckled. The spasm vibrated his bruised muscles and he groaned, returning the ice pack to his face. "Natasha insisted on taste-testing everything," said Bruce. He didn't even try to mask his annoyance. "She insisted that she be the one who gets poisoned."

"Banner, a feather would knock you over," Widow reasoned. She unscrewed a bottle of acetaminophen capsules and helped Clint swallow five of them.

"Perhaps whatever potion they used on me is also what is keeping our friend Hulk at bay," Thor reasoned. He lifted his palm in front of his face and glared daggers at it. "I feel as weak as a… a… Those furry creatures that Miss Potts is so fond of — what do you call them?"

"A kitten, Thor," Stark sighed. He took four pills and swallowed them in one gulp.

Thor rubbed the dark half-circles under his eyes. "A concoction to keep an Asgardian incapacitated like this, for so many hours on end… I doubt that any soul but Odin would ever have heard of it. I cannot imagine such magic exists on earth."

"I've tried everything imaginable to keep the Other Guy bottled up," Bruce explained after he took his medicine. "Nothing I've tried has even come close to making me feel so weak. It's like… It's almost like the Hulk is asleep."

"Well wake the big guy up, will you?" Tony muttered. "Get us the hell out of here. Preferably before one of us is executed." Tony dragged his nails through his hair as his thoughts, along with everyone else's, turned to Cap.

Natasha let Bruce sort and distribute the rest of the medical supplies. The other labels on bottles and vials were out of her league. She sighed and sat back down between Clint and Thor, completing their little circle. Hawkeye held still as she checked his shoulder and confirmed that he was no longer bleeding. Clint frowned as memories surfaced. "That Enhanced kid. What was his name? Peter Hasselhoff? Who the hell is he?"

"Pietro Maximoff and no, I've never heard of him." Tony opened his mouth as if to speak again, but suddenly his left arm stretched out and he gently squeezed Bruce's shoulder. "I'm sorry he targeted you. I'm sorry, Bruce." Banner replied by squeezing Tony's hand.

Natasha set the lantern aside and smoothed out the dirt in the center of the circle. Using her right thumb, she drew the outline of a skull in the dirt. "We should take this opportunity to compare notes, boys," she said as she drew a larger circle around the skull to represent the underground base surrounding the central arena. "X's" marked the spots where they were chained in the arena, where the dungeon was, and where the known exits leading in and out of the arena were situated. "Sounds like Strucker and this Superior guy have some nasty plans for us."

"You have no idea how nasty, Widow," said a razor of a voice. All five Avengers looked up to see a man in a black uniform standing on the edge of the pit. Scars crisscrossed the skin around his eyes and a white "x" decorated his chest.

"Rumlow," Natasha gasped. Beside her, Clint tried to leap to his feet but only got as far as his knees, which collapsed beneath him. Tony lunged and caught Clint by the shoulders before his head collided with the ground. Clint's chin bounced off of Tony's throat and he groaned.

"They call me Crossbones, now," the ex-SHIELD agent said with a smirk. He leveled a gun at the pit and cocked it.

Natasha crossed in front of her teammates. "Who's this guy?" Bruce asked her.

"He was on the STRIKE Team with Steve," Natasha said. "Tried to kill us. We thought he died at the Triskelion." She looked back over her shoulder and shot fierce looks at Thor, Banner, Clint, and Tony. "Stay behind me."

"Widow, if I wanted you dead…" Rumlow lowered his weapon and made a spinning motion with his fingers instead of finishing his sentence. "I hope I have the honor when we are permitted to kill you but until then…" Crossbones sighed like an impatient child. "There are many men far richer than me who would like to have the pleasure, but maybe I can pull a few strings."

"That's why we're here?" Natasha asked, clarifying what they all already knew. "Hydra is auctioning off our lives?"

Crossbones shrugged. "We tried selling lemonade on the side of the road to raise money, but world domination is just so expensive." Shuffling feet and voices behind him. Rumlow turned, blinked, and then grinned. "You might want to take a step back, Romanoff. We've got some company for you."

Thor sat up straight. "Captain?" he called, his voice cracking on the second syllable.

"No cigar." Rumlow stepped aside as someone was launched over the side of the pit. The body fell head-over-heels, landing with a dramatic thud on his back. One of arms grazed Thor's gauntlets and a metallic clang like a thick gong resonated through the hole. The Avengers scrambled back into the furthest corner of the pit. The newcomer groaned and rubbed his eyes. Lantern light reflected off of silver, and Natasha gasped.

"Holy SHIT," Tony spat.

"What?" Bruce, Thor, and Clint gasped.

"That's Barnes — that's HIM," Natasha sputtered around a fist-sized lump in her throat. "It's the Winter Soldier."

"Strucker wants the god and the monster," Rumlow said to a pair of guards who lowered a steel ladder into the pit. Crossbones unsheathed two handguns, pointing one at Thor and the other at Banner. "Don't make me say this more than once: come quietly."

"NO." Tony left Clint propped up against the back wall. He joined Natasha and the two Avengers blocked their god and their monster from the approaching guards. "They stay with us, or you take us with them. We're not separating."

Rumlow suddenly shifted his aim. He fired two shots. Both bullets passed through the small space between Stark and Romanoff. One smacked into the dirt right behind Clint's left ear, and the other nicked his right as it went. Banner immediately held his arms straight up above his head. "OK!" he bellowed. "Coming quietly — we're coming quietly." Shaking with equal amounts of fear and rage, Tony and Natasha forced themselves to stay still while the guards escorted the limping, fumbling pair away. Bruce barely made it up the ladder under his own strength, and Thor turned frost giant-white. Right before the group vanished from sight, Rumlow gave the remaining three Avengers a dazzling smile — white teeth, wide eyes, victory posture. And with that, the pit once again fell silent.

"Son of a bitch—" Tony knelt in front of Clint and cupped his friend's face between trembling palms. His voice didn't quite crack, but it did creak. "Barton?"

"I'm… I'm ok," Clint whispered. Slowing his breaths down again was like trying to calm a bull. His eyes didn't meet Stark's. They stayed fixed on Romanoff as she tiptoed towards the Winter Soldier. "Nat — Nat! Listen to me. You can't beat him. Not in this small of a space. Not without any weapons."

Natasha's body was as still as stone once she reached Barnes. Anger, frustration, and fear filled her, tightening every muscle, transforming her from woman into weapon. She couldn't hear Clint, didn't see Tony jog up beside her. Her entire body was about to spring right down the Winter Soldier's throat.

"Steve…" A voice of wind. Little more than an exhale. "Help… Help… Steve." Barnes' eyes were half-lidded and unfocused.

"He's not here," Natasha declared. Each word was like a punch in the air. "Even if he was, he wouldn't help YOU."

"No. Not what I… not what I mean…" Barnes raised his arm. His eyes flickered in surprise, as though he hadn't realized that the iron one was the one he chose. He quickly lowered it and instead opted for lifting his wholly human hand. "Help Steve. We have to help Steve. They're using it on him. I tried to stop them — I swear I tried, but Strucker took him."

Tony risked stepping into Natasha's peripheral vision. "Barnes?" Bucky's relieved eyes moved to his. "Bucky Barnes?" Bucky nodded.

"Tony, don't, it's a trick," Natasha hissed.

Stark ignored her. He crouched in front of Bucky but kept his distance like he was a wounded animal that still had the ability to bite. "What happened?"

Bucky licked his white lips. "You're Stark. You're Tony Stark."

"What happened to Steve?"

"I was in a cell. They tossed him in with me. They thought we would try to kill each other, but I've changed. I remember. I remember who I am. I remember Steve. I'd never hurt him — never hurt him. But they want us to fight. They're going to use Loki's scepter to control his mind and make him kill."

Clint was on his feet. He kept an arm against the wall for balance, but managed to join them. "Prove it. If you're truly on Steve's side, on our side now, prove it."

Barnes wiped a dozen black strands of hair out of his face. "Steve said you would say that. He said to tell you something. Nick Fury's most recent password."

Clint and Natasha exchanged glances. "Spit it out," she ordered Barnes.

Bucky took a deep breath. "Cuttlefish."

Tony couldn't hide his shock. He looked up at his fellow Avengers and saw his surprise mirrored. Tony reached into the overturned brown bag, retrieved a Tupperware container and held it out to Barnes. "Want some banana bread?"

---------

THE THETA PROTOCOL FACILITY

UPSTATE NEW YORK

Sam Koenig cursed his short legs as he struggled to keep up with Lance Hunter and Antoine "Trip" Triplett's long strides. "Mack says we have two options. Either we can keep working on the repulsor engines and have them ready to go in 72 hours, or we can go with the old engines and hope for the best."

"It'll take 24 hours to get this flying tugboat to the Baltic, repulsors or not," Hunter said, adjusting the collar of his black leather jacket as he walked.

Trip led the way down a staircase that went from the central facility to the underground hangar. "Coulson wants everything that floats or flies ASAP," he reminded them. He stepped aside when they reached the door so that Koenig could unlock it.

Sam shrugged off his lanyard and swiped his triangular keycard. "But the retro-reflective panels are still offline. Hydra is going to see us coming from 10 kilometers away."

"Perfect," Hunter sighed, his accent thick with sarcasm. While Trip hesitated at the doorframe to admire the gigantic hangar and the Helicarrier in the center of it, Hunter found the nearest gangplank and kept marching. Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie stood waiting for his teammates on the deck of No. 64. "Any news?"

Mack twirled a screwdriver in his left hand while simultaneously scratching his bald head with his right. "Yeah. Peterson found Captain America's shield and Stark's armor."

Trip scrambled down the ramp. "Does that mean he found the entrance to the base?"

"Unless it's at a circus in Vienna, no." Mack gestured for the other three to follow him as he headed for the bridge of the Helicarrier. "It's the damnedest thing, boys. Mike saw the Hydra cell dump the tech, and then they attacked the freaking circus."

Trip snorted. "Sorry, what?"

"They hijacked a Barnum and Bailey circus train. Zip lined onto it all Howling Commandos style. They dumped the clowns, the animal trainers, the bearded ladies but they kept all of the animals and — surprise surprise — headed towards Warsaw."

Hunter shook his head. "What the hell does Hydra want with a bunch of lions and tigers and bears?"

"Oh my," Sam said under his breath.

"And when I asked for news, Mack, I meant news about the girls."

"Yeah…" Mack avoided Hunter's gaze. "No word yet."

Hunter cursed. "They missed their check-in time."

"It's only been a couple hours," Trip reminded him. The taller man hesitated, then put his palm on his teammate's shoulder. "They probably just got caught in a snowstorm or something." Both Mack and Hunter shot him a that-doesn't-make-me-feel-better look. Trip sighed and shrugged. "If Bobbi's in trouble, the best thing to do is get this boat to Europe as fast as possible."

The four men crowded into the lift that led up to the bridge. When the silence lasted a bit too long, Sam announced, "There is some good news." The others didn't reply, but all eyes turned to him. "They started evacuating Warsaw. SHIELD planted a story about a massive gas leak. If you run into a firefight at least the civilian causalities will be at a minimum."

"When," Trip said. "When there's a firefight."

"And why are you saying 'you' like you won't be there with us, Koenig?" Mack asked.

Sam cowered against the wall. "What?"

The elevator slowed and stopped, but Hunter kept the doors from opening. "Sam, we barely have a skeleton crew aboard. It's all hands on deck, mate."

"I hate flying!" Koenig stammered. "The last flight I took was from Beijing to New York through two tropical storms. Plane was packed with some children's choir from Australia." He shuddered at the memory. "The movie they showed was ‘Snakes on a Plane.’ Can you believe that? A bunch of scared kids watching ‘Snakes on a Plane’ while they're on plane?"

"If this mission goes south, you're not going to have a job anymore anyway," Trip pointed out.

"Way to keep your spirits up!" Mack sighed.

"Brother, Hydra made a big move taking the Avengers. If they're out of the picture, it won't be long until the rest of SHIELD is gone, too."

Hunter let the doors open. "Team Coulson is doing its part, Mack, but the Avengers? We need them to deal with the gods and aliens – all that cosmic shit."

Two men and one woman who stood in the center of the bridge whirled around when the agents entered. Mack immediately stood at attention and saluted. "Colonel!"

"At ease," Rhodey said. "You must be Hunter. Sam here tells us you're the agent in charge on this ship." Rhodey smoothed down his uniform, stepped forward and shook Hunter's hand.

"Uh, yeah," Hunter sputtered. "I wasn't aware that you would all be joining us, Colonel."

Sam stepped forward. "Agent Hunter, Agent Trip, Agent Mackenzie, you know Colonel Rhodes, Happy Hogan, and Pepper Potts." Happy, who was studying each agent's ID badge, gave them a half-hearted wave.

Although she looked casual in jeans, sneakers, and a Stark Industries t-shirt, Pepper's posture still exuded authority. "Maria Hill said it would be all right for us transport some Stark tech with you. Sam's team already loaded it into the cargo bay. Hope you don't mind."

"Mind?" Trip shared a bewildered look with Hunter. "Ma'am, I don't suppose there's a suit of armor down there that'll fit me?"

Pepper smiled patiently. "One of your technicians mentioned that your retro-reflective panels aren't operational. Our people might be able to help you with that and… Um, forgive me, but I thought I heard you say a name," she said, hesitating after every other word. "Did you say… Coulson?"

---------

Bucky drew a lopsided four-leaf clover in the dirt. "The base is divided into four quadrants," he said around a mouthful of banana bread. "Everything you've described — the arena, the dungeon, the pit, and all of the other cells — that's all here in the east section." He glanced up at Natasha, Clint, and Tony to make sure that they saw him pointing at the right "leaf." "The whole arena is about the size of a football field. Counting the prison sections, I've calculated that this unit is at least 300 square yards."

"How many prisoners are there?" Clint quietly asked from his position leaning back against the dirt wall. "And how long have you been here?"

Bucky ran dirty fingernails through his dark shoulder-length hair. "I'm not sure who all they have here. I've fought a dozen different men in the arena — to the death. I had no choice. They caught up with me about a month I left Steve on that riverbank. I was trying to get to New York to find him—"

"That was you?" Tony asked, shocked. "You rescued Steve?"

"After I shot him and watched him fall out of a Helicarrier…? Yeah." Bucky rubbed the back of his neck and stole a glance at Natasha. "I'm sorry, by the way, Agent Romanoff. I hope you believe me when I say that the brainwashed lunatic who tried to kill you wasn't me." When Natasha didn't look at him, let alone respond, Bucky turned to Tony. "I should tell you, too, Mr. Stark, how sorry I am about your parents—"

Natasha suddenly cut Bucky off by clearing her throat. "How about you go through your twelve-step program later, Barnes. Where's the armory?"

Bucky hesitated. He started to finish off the last of the water but then hesitated, watched Hawkeye for a moment, and then passed the water bottle over to him. "I think it's in the north corner," Barnes said. "I overheard a guard say he was heading there to stock up on bullets. One of the Enhanced got loose that morning and—"

"There are more Enhanced here?" Natasha shook her head and kept shaking it as she spoke. "Our intelligence says that only a couple people have survived Strucker's experiments. You're saying there's more?"

Bucky snorted. "No offense to SHIELD's spy network but yeah. I've met at least…" Bucky used his fingers on both hands to count. "At least nine. No, eleven. At least eleven that I knew for sure were Enhanced. This place has been sort of a proving ground for them. They get tossed into the arena, they fight, they fine-tune their skills… There's this one kid, Pietro Maximoff, who never loses in the arena. He's an ok guy — hates it here as much as I do. His sister, I think her name is Wanda, she's, well, weird."

Widow licked her dry lips. "How do we get to the armory from here?" she asked.

"We're not leaving Steve and the others behind," Tony declared.

Bucky nodded in agreement. "Strucker's lab is in the south wing. They're probably there."

Natasha rubbed her red-rimmed eyes. "Tony, I need to get you and Clint out of here. I can come back for the others."

"And take on a thousand Hydra agents all by yourself?" Clint sputtered. "Nat, are you crazy?"

"We have this fossil on our side now," she said, gesturing at Bucky.

Barnes cocked his eyebrows. "Hey!"

A roar suddenly echoed through the halls. Footsteps and sharp voices preceded another series of growls.

"Is that Banner?" Clint asked.

Tony and Natasha were on their feet. "That's not the Hulk," Stark said.

"Sounded like a big cat," said Natasha. Suddenly, she remembered the posters hanging up in and around the arena. Flyers showing caricatured images of the Avengers fighting animals and robots and superhumans while the audience cheered and placed bets. "Oh, no."

----------

A rivulet of sweat went from Steve's hairline to his eye, mixed with the salty tears and turned into fire. It felt like a hornet stinging his retina. All of that super-soldier strength and Captain America couldn't even lift a finger to rub his own eyeball. Not without a combination of permission and instruction from the puppet master holding Loki's scepter. The harder Cap tried to overcome the spell, the more sweat got in his eyes. That was all he could accomplish. That and watching, helplessly, as Thor and Banner were shepherded into Strucker's lab and strapped down onto parallel operating tables. A herd of nurses swarmed them with needles. They called to him, reached out with weak, trembling hands. But they went quiet, and they went still when the poison kicked in. And Steve just stood in the corner, as useless as an umbrella stand, his eyes glowing a bright alien blue.

The lab's bleach-clean white walls, floor, and ceiling were a stark contrast to the cement, stone, and dirt that made up the rest of the base. Eight metallic tables as long and wide as Thor's frame were lined up against one wall. The left side of the room was all computer terminals, medical lab equipment, and locked floor-to-ceiling medicine cabinets. Steve counted several hazmat suits hanging from one shelf.

Strucker held the scepter above Thor's half-lidded eyes. For a moment Steve thought that the mind-control wouldn't work on the Asgardian. Thor's back arched as he tried to fight it but although it took longer than it had with Steve, after a minute Thor's eyes turned demon-black before they settled into the blue. Thor sat up. He swung his legs over the table. Looking like a robot, the god slowly marched across the room to join Steve in the corner. Their eyes met briefly but neither could acknowledge the other.

Strucker turned his full attention to Banner. He held up the scepter like it was a magic wand, even flicked it at one point. Nothing happened. The doctor whispered something to one of the guards who scurried out the door to quickly return with a slim, dark-haired woman who wore black jeans and a red t-shirt. It took Steve awhile but eventually he remembered why the girl looked familiar. She'd been in the arena, sitting next to the punk who sucker punched Banner. She was in handcuffs now — her wrists settled against her stomach.

Her mouth and eyes widened when she made eye contact with Steve. He wasn't sure what the expression was that followed her surprise. It was almost… disappointment? Strucker motioned for all of the guards and nurses to vacate the lab. His voice in Steve's head ordered both him and Thor to stay. Steve heard the glass doors slide shut and lock. A green light on the ceiling suddenly switched to red.

Strucker paced around Bruce, eyeing him like he was a bank vault that refused to be broken into. "There is a monster in this man," Strucker told the woman.

She inched closer to the table. "I see it," she whispered. "It's… He's sleeping. He's…" The woman brushed her thumb across Banner's forehead. "He's in pain."

Strucker clasped his hands behind his back. "I want to control this beast. I need to be able to unleash it and cage it at my will."

"Your toy cannot control him?"

Strucker told Bruce to scratch his nose. Banner's arm, hand, and finger obeyed. "I appear to be able to influence the man," the doctor said. "But I suspect that I'll need you to rein in the monster."

"I can try."

Steve would've stood there frozen in shock whether he had a choice or not. He watched, stunned, as a red aura rose from the woman's pale hands and enveloped Bruce's body. Banner's body seized. His head bounced so hard against the table that Steve knew he'd just given himself a concussion. Eyes widened, jaw dropped, and his throat strained under a silent scream. Tears squirted from Bruce's eyes as another seizure wracked his body. Blood began to drip out of his nose.

The woman put her cuffed arms back down and backed away. "It's not working."

Strucker's neck, cheeks, and head all went red. "Try again."

"That monster, as you call him, has a mind I've never encountered before. It's so different. So…" She licked her lips, searching for the word, and finally just shook her head in surrender.

"Try again," Strucker repeated. Steve sensed that he was one of those men who did not like to repeat himself.

She did, and got the same result. "I'm killing him," she warned as blood started dripping from Bruce's ears as well as his nose.

"Try again!"

After a particularly vicious seizure, Bruce's eyes found Steve's. He blinked, squinted, and then gave the captain an apologetic look. Something shifted behind his eyes. Contentment settled in them — peace. Bruce gave his friends a brief smile a second before his eyes rolled back into his skull.

The woman gasped and held her hands up as if in surrender. "He stopped breathing!"

-----------

Wanda Maximoff stepped aside as a panicked Strucker dashed to Banner's side and pressed his ear against the Avenger's lips. He cursed in German, and then spat, "You ridiculous woman — he's breathing fine!"

Wanda grabbed a microscope and smashed it as hard as she could against the back of Strucker's skull. The baron was unconscious before he hit the ground—blood streaming down the back of his neck and disappearing into his black uniform. Wanda grabbed a keycard out of his pocket, stepped over him and cupped Bruce's cheeks between her petite, white hands.

Bruce's brown eyes opened halfway. "It's nice to meet you, too," he whispered, replying out loud to something she'd only said in his head. "Thank you."

"Do not thank me yet," Wanda replied. "We have miles to go, I'm afraid." She helped Bruce sit up, and then stand. He kept his balance as long as his arm was across her shoulders.

"My friends. Can you help them?"

A snake-like stream of red floated from her fingers to Steve and Thor's eyes. Steve gasped, bent at the waist and dug both of his fists into his eyes. Thor groaned, wobbled for half a second, and then collapsed face-down on the white floor. "How the hell did you do that?" Steve demanded. Once his eyes were sweat-free he knelt beside Thor and shook his shoulder. "And what the hell do you think you're doing now?"

"It's all right, Cap," Bruce slurred. He smacked his own cheek, trying to fight the new dose of poison in his blood. "This is Wanda. We can trust her. She just saved my life."

"That's all I need to know… for now." Steve reached up and, with one mighty pull, he yanked Wanda's handcuffs apart, freeing her arms completely. Then he rolled Thor onto his back and shook him awake. "On your feet, soldier," the captain ordered.

Thor swatted at him like he was a fly. "Son of Odin… Can't tell me what to do…" he mumbled.

Wanda urged Bruce to walk forward. She used Strucker's keycard to unlock the sliding glass doors that led out into the hall. The red light flicked back to green. "This room has a radiation seal," Bruce noted. "What the hell has Strucker been experimenting with?"

"The scepter!" Wanda looked back into the lab. "We should take it with us."

Steve finally succeeded in getting Thor to his feet. "You have to help Banner and it looks like I might have to carry Thor. We can't take it with us." Steve hesitated. He cocked his head to the side as an idea formed. "But I can do this." Cap marched over to the scepter and broke the device in half over his knee. He then slammed both halves into the floor, shattering the glowing blue crystal into hundreds of quarter-sized pieces. After returning to Thor and pulling the god's arm across his shoulders, Steve said, "Come on. We have to get to the rest of the team."

"And my brother!" Wanda said. Her tone of voice was made of metal. "I'm not leaving without him. I helped you escape — you owe me this."

"Fine," Steve said. "But we're getting my people first. Lead the way, Banner."

Bruce was breathing like he was in the middle of a triathlon. "Left," he huffed. "Take two rights and then another left. They're in a pit."

Steve started to move with Thor limping beside him. "Huh? Dozens of cages in this place and they're in a hole?"

"There must be something they don't want your friends to see," said Wanda. "Another prisoner, perhaps?"

"Let's pick up some speed, kids," Bruce urged the group. "There are a thousand Hydra agents in this building. No way will we be under the radar for long. Where's your hammer, Thor?"

Thor groaned. He rubbed his forehead like something sticky covered it. "I summoned Mjolnir. Several times. I do not know… I cannot sense it nearby…"

"We need weapons," Steve said.

Banner cocked an eyebrow at Wanda, who mirrored his expression. "Yes, you have my permission," he said. "Just… just try not to kill anybody."

The turned down the next hallway and — sure enough — three armed guards were standing in front of an office door. Banner closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. Red burst from Wanda's fingertips, and a red-eyed Hulk burst out of Banner like a jack-in-the-box. At an unspoken command from Wanda, he attacked.

----------

Grant Ward drew a queen and tucked her in beside her sister, who looked mighty fine next to a pair of kings. The other five men sitting around the cafeteria table watched him expectedly. "You can keep looking for his tell but you won't find it," Skinny said proudly from his seat on Ward's left. "Years, dudes. For years I've been playing with this guy and not once have I cracked this Poker face." Skinny, his breath stinking of cigar smoke and beer, fondly tapped Ward's forehead with his knuckles.

Ward gave his friend a noncommittal smile. "That's what we should be betting on," he said.

Skinny pressed the tips of his thumbs and forefingers together and held the fake glasses against his red eyes. "On my dis-disability to see — wait, to not see — through you, mate?"

Ward held his face cards against his nose and waggled his eyebrows. "Hydra born, SHIELD trained, boys. You could torture me for a year and I'd never show my hand." Just then the cell phone in Ward's leather jacket pocket started to buzz. He plucked it out and looked at the caller ID: Phyllis. "I fold."

Skinny immediately swiped up Ward's cards. "Holy shit! That must be some chick, brother."

"Is it Romanoff?" one of the other men chuckled.

"Shut up! It's my girlfriend," Ward hissed at them. He backed his chair away from the table and popped up to his feet. After taking an exaggerated deep breath and making a show of putting on a smile, Ward answered the phone, "Hey, baby!"

Phil Coulson's voice echoed over the phone, like he was in a large room. "Still no word from Skye and the others. They're MIA at this point. The next time you're on guard duty, see if they've brought three women to the base."

"I'm fine, babe!" Ward said loud enough for the Hydra agents to hear. "Yeah, I'm just playing Poker with the boys right now, but I'll take care of that ASAP, I promise. Did you just get home?"

Coulson's voice dropped to a whisper. "Just landed in Berlin. Wilson and I are escorting Dr. Foster and her party. We're meeting May and Carter at baggage claim and then hightailing it to the rendezvous point."

"Honey, I thought you were going to do that yesterday!"

"Bounty hunters on our tail. We switched planes twice."

"Aw, man, that sucks." Ward rubbed his eyes, using his hand to block the brief anxious look on his face. "I miss you, baby."

"We'll have birds in the air and boots on the ground in 36 hours, Ward."

"What? I thought I'd be seeing you sooner than that."

Someone in the background on Coulson's side called out a greeting. Coulson responded briefly in German. Ward heard his boss sigh before he spoke again. "Everyone's working as fast as they can. Literally everyone — all of SHIELD is coming. Do what you can to keep them safe until we get there."

"You know I try, babe, you know it." Ward took a second to collect his thoughts. "Go out tonight and have some fun. The guys and I are hitting up a sports bar and I hate the thought of you sitting at home all bored."

"There's an arena match tonight?" Coulson confirmed.

"Yeah."

"Dammit." Coulson spoke softly to someone called Selvig before returning to their conversation. "But you're sure — you're SURE they're not executing anyone tonight?"

"Nah, babe. It's just a bunch of drunk assholes who might knock your head in but that's as rough as it gets, I swear."

"Just keep them alive, Ward. Do what you can to keep them alive."

Ward faced the cafeteria wall and pressed his lips together tight. "How's your brother? Did you tell him about us yet? No? Sweetheart — come on, sweetheart — I can't keep this secret from him forever! He's already suspicious — I can tell. What am I supposed to say if he catches us in the act?" Behind Ward, Skinny and the rest of the Poker game whistled and laughed at him.

"I trust your judgment, Ward." Coulson hesitated. "Maintain your cover for as long as you can but if it's life or death, I need you to step in. We need the Avengers alive."

"What if I have the chance to buy your bro a drink or something?"

Silence. And then, "Try again, please," Coulson calmly requested.

"He's moving in a couple weeks, isn't he? If I can get my hands on a pickup truck I'll give him some extra help, all right? I'm not going to kill my back moving his couch all by myself, but if I can help him in any way I should, right?"

Ward's hints clicked this time. "If you can find some way to help them, then do it," Coulson ordered. "They're using some sort of poison on Thor and Banner and Rogers, right? See if you can get your hands on that — on an antidote if we're lucky. We need our heavy hitters back in the game."

"All right. I'll take care of that as soon as I can. And by the way, I got a quote from the Viber Exterminators. They can take care of that spider nest in the shed next week."

"You bugged the Black Widow with Vibranium. Copy that." Cars honked. "Our rental's ready. I gotta go, Ward. Anything else I need to know?"

"Yeah yeah, babe, real quick before I let you go, remember that OLD friend of yours? That dude who always wore a blue suit?"

Coulson's voice tightened. "Cap?"

"Yeah, I met that war buddy of his he used to talk about."

"Barnes?" Coulson gasped. "The Winter Soldier is there?"

"Yeah, I ran into both of them, actually. I remember you saying they didn't get along, but they looked like two peas in a pod to me."

"Barnes and Cap reunited and the Winter Soldier is on our side?"

"I'd bet my life on it, babe."

"I'll call back this time tomorrow, Agent Ward."

"Ok, yeah, sure babe, I'll talk to you soon. I love you, too."

The second — the precise second that Ward hung up the phone — flashing red lights and wailing alarms erupted all over the base. Hydra agents abandoned their poker winnings and sprinted for the door. "Ward, let's go!" Skinny called.

Grant followed. "Hey, I'm the new guy here. What the hell is going on?"

"Prison break!" Skinny exclaimed. "Someone's trying to escape!"

Ward's face fell and his heart sank with it. "Dumbasses," he whispered. "It's not the right time, dammit, it's not the right time!"

---------

Clint didn't mean to fall asleep. He closed his eyes to compose himself when his shoulder started throbbing, and the next thing he knew the Hulk was standing over him, sniffing the dried blood on his shirt. "Hey, Big Guy," Barton muttered, "no offense, but are you a figment of my imagination?"

The Hulk snarled. He lifted Clint into his arms like a child holding a teddy bear. Green knees briefly bent, and then they were both soaring out of the prison pit. They landed on the ground next to the liberated Stark, Barnes, and Romanoff, who were comparing notes with Steve, Wanda, and Thor. "Oh, hi," Clint wheezed. "So, we're running for our lives, huh?"

"Sorry we didn't call ahead." Steve passed the semiconscious Thor off to Bucky and helped Clint get his footing. "Pick a weapon. We snatched a few on our way here."

A blur in their peripheral vision. Something entered the room and zigzagged between the Avengers (elbowing each of them as it went). "Pietro, STOP!" Wanda cried. Quicksilver did, but only after his sister was safely in his arms.

"What the hell is going on?" Pietro demanded. "There's a whole army heading this way — I have to get you out of here!"

"No!" Wanda snapped. "Not without them. We are with them, now, Pietro. I saw their minds. They are good men!"

Pietro let his sister slide out of his grasp. He took a step back as if she had slapped him. "These men are not on our side! If we're lucky we can escape this prison while Hydra recaptures them! Wanda, what reason do we have to be loyal to—"

Everyone saw the red laser dot appear in the space between Wanda's eyes, but it was Tony who acted. Sore and hungry and sleep-deprived as he was, Tony Stark was still an athlete. Lightning-quick, he got to her and yanked her down half a moment before the bullet shattered the corner of the stone wall behind her. Pietro dropped as well, and Barnes and Romanoff provided cover fire while the three of them scrambled back behind the Hulk. Tears welled up so heavy and fast from Wanda's chest that she could barely gasp out a "Thank you" to Tony.

"Any…" Tony struggled for the breath to speak one word. "…time."

Pietro guided his sister away from Tony and hugged her tight against his chest. "That didn't — this doesn't absolve him," he stammered between his own attempts to fight tears. Wanda rolled her eyes at him.

Natasha crouched into a catcher's position and placed the palms of her fingers against the dirt ground. "They're coming," she called to her teammates. "We gotta move, boys!"

"We're out of here," Pietro declared. He snatched Wanda up again.

She fought him. "No—Pietro, no!"

"This is for your own good — this is for your own good, Sis." With a nearly apologetic look at Tony, Pietro sped off down the west corridor.

The Hulk groaned. A dizzy spell hit him, and he braced himself against the wall. "Oh, no," Steve gasped. "Everybody get back!"

Everyone but Tony did. "What's wrong with him?"

"Poisoned. I don't know exactly what she does, but the Hulk can only move because Wanda tells him to."

The magical Maximoff returned then — in part. Smoky red tendrils of magic drifted out of the hall the twins disappeared down. They lassoed the Hulk's head and led him forward. In the corridor, the walls were so narrow and the ceiling was so short that the Hulk had to duck and nearly turn sideways. This turned him into a shield. The perfect shield to protect the others when a squad of Hydra agents opened fire. No bullets got past him, so the other Avengers were able to keep moving. Moving past dark corridors. Moving past steel cages and iron doors. Past windows full of wide-eyed faces. Clint thought he heard a voice shout his name but when he hesitated, Natasha grabbed his elbow and kept him moving. Wanda's breadcrumb trail took them around the perimeter of the football field-sized arena. They passed an empty cafeteria, several closed office doors, and what looked like a janitor's closet.

The grenade landed at Natasha's feet. She had the wherewithal to kick it as hard as she could. It ricocheted off the stone wall and landed on the floor 15 feet away.

"Dogpile!" Natasha yelled. The Avengers' training paid off. The well-oiled-machine of a team already had a plan for that very scenario.

They moved fluidly. There was an order to the dogpile. Anyone injured always went on the bottom, the most protected position. Clint threw himself across Thor and tented his body over his friend's head. Tony immediately crouched down between Clint and the bomb, followed quickly by Natasha who shoved Barnes into the mix. Steve dove in last just before the Hulk folded himself on top of the whole group, forming a protective bubble over everyone.

The Hulk planted his feet and dug his fingers into the dirt like tent stakes. When the grenade exploded, his mouth was wide-open and roaring at the impending fireball.

The explosion seemed to mess the very physics of things.

The team felt the heat of it even through the Hulk's body. The Hulk endured the brunt of the blast but the percussive wave hit him so hard that a second later he lost his footing and went flying like an umbrella caught by a sudden gust of wind. It was more wind than fire that slammed into his charges. The whole group rolled head over collective heels. They were pawns in a pinball machine — ricocheting off the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and each other.

When the dust finally settled, the Avengers were in a crater. The only sound was the Hulk groaning as he folded back into Banner.

----------

Making a split-second decision was one of Grant Ward's fortes. Although it was fifty-fifty that the decision was the correct one, he still made it without even a moment's hesitation. An imperative skill for a special agent. Outside the cafeteria, a fork in the road waited for him. Every Hydra agent sprinted left — presumably toward the escaped prisoners. Ward went right. Right to Strucker's lab. He dragged Skinny with him.

"Holy mother!" Skinny gasped at the sight of the lab. Half the floor was covered in what looked like blue glass.

Only a handful of guards were there. Some were attending to the doctor's wounds while others swept up the glittering remains of the shattered scepter. Under the guise of checking the shelves to see if the escaped Avengers had run off with anything important, Ward scanned every box, tube, cylinder, and vial for the Thor-trumping, Hulk-hampering poison Hydra inexplicably got their hands on. The German labels slowed him down — nearly to a stop — but suddenly he saw a word he recognized, and couldn't help but smile.

"Hey, what's this yellow thing?"

Ward pocketed the vial and several syringes, and turned just in time to see Skinny reach for a triangular yellow gem on the floor. Ward and Strucker simultaneously shouted, "Wait—!"

Like he was playing a game of jacks, Skinny swiped up the stone into his palm and, instantly, a flash of yellow light erupted across his skin. Eyes wide, mouth open, his body went straight and stiff, then collapsed to the floor. Black ink replaced the blue in his eyes. He began to twitch and quake, but it was less like a seizure and more like he was trying to dodge something the rest of them couldn't see. "No," he moaned, "no don't go down there — scorpions — I see scorpions!"

"What the hell is happening to him?" one of the agents demanded.

"He's having a nightmare!" another theorized.

"Don't touch it!" Strucker bellowed when a third guard reached for the gem. The doctor strutted through the crowd and kicked the yellow stone out of Skinny's hand. It skidded across the floor, bounced off a wall and went spinning beneath a computer terminal. Strucker snatched some needle nose pliers off of a surgical tray and carefully lifted the yellow stone up.

"Skinny?" Ward knelt beside his sort-of-friend and shook his shoulder. The blackness was gone, replaced by a brilliant blue. Skinny lay flat and limp on the floor, zombie-like, just staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

Strucker approached. He looked back and forth between Skinny and the gem and, gradually, a sneer-smirk-smile formed on his thin pale lips. "Stand at attention, soldier," he ordered Skinny. To Ward's surprise, and everyone else's, Skinny immediately climbed to his feet and saluted. "I want you to hop on one foot." Skinny obeyed. Strucker chuckled. "Stop now," he said, satisfied.

Or, so Ward thought.

Strucker's face vaguely resembled a vulture's. It wasn't the shape of his nose or the way he cocked his head to the side when he observed his prey. It was the pure I'm-the-predator message that exuded from his gleeful eyes. Following a few laps pacing around Skinny, the doctor slinked up behind him and whispered, "I order your heart to stop beating."

"No!" Ward shouted, horrified. Hydra agent or not, Skinny didn't deserve to die as yet another one of Dr. Strucker's experiments.

Skinny put up a good fight. A mind-controlled mind's first instinct was still survival. He started to sweat, to tremble, and then to shake as he battled the command. An impressive ten seconds passed before he collapsed to the floor. Blood leaked from his nose, from both ears, and then from his mouth. He shrieked, seized, but ultimately he was no match for the gem's power. Although the ice-blue color faded from his eyes, he was no longer seeing through them.

Ward knelt beside the body and checked for a pulse. With mixed feelings, and an equally mixed expression, he looked up at the mad scientist and announced, "He's dead."

A grinning Strucker turned to the nearest agent. "Find me the longest, thickest rubber gloves on this base."

---------

24 HOURS AGO

The slimmest sliver of light from the hall crossed through the center of the dark cage. Steve stared at it as he listened to Bucky describe everything he'd been through: the experimentation, the surgeries, the brainwashing… Looking at that light — looking at anything other than his best friend's red eyes — was the only way that Steve could bear to hear the story.

Bucky sat on Steve's left. Utilizing his knees like a vice, he held his mechanical arm still and used a dirty fingernail to scratch at a cracked square inch of metal. "I went to that Smithsonian exhibit all day, every day, for an entire week. I looked at the pictures, read the stories, saw the interviews. Pieces of the puzzle came slowly but at least they came… At night I'd just walk around the city, thinking. I went back to the Potomac — back to the place I left you — with no clue what I would say if I actually found you there. But you were gone by then."

"Tony found me." Steve closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. "And I tried to find you. I went back there too, Buck. Even tried to track your boot prints." Steve swallowed the knot rising in his throat. "I've been trying so hard to find you."

"Mission accomplished," Barnes chuckled wryly. "Here we are. Just like old times, brother. You and me, our backs against the wall… Only this time I'm part robot." A splinter of rusted iron flaked off of Bucky's arm then. He winced as if it was a chunk of bone. "When they brought me here they tried to… reactivate the Winter Soldier. They tried f-for d-days." Bucky coughed against his fist. "I fought the brainwashing, Steve."

A slim tear sneaked out of the corner of Rogers' eye. "How?" he croaked.

"I remembered you," Bucky whispered. His face paled. His eyes darkened. "I clung to every memory. I think… I think it protected me. And I wanted to survive — survive as me — just for one chance to tell you…"

"You don't have to say it," Steve whispered.

Bucky's eyes sparkled. "Yes, I do. I WANT to. I fought hard for this chance. I earned it. Let it be worth it." Bucky took a deep breath and pivoted to face his friend. He took a deep breath and the exhale came out in hiccups. "I want to tell you that I'm sorry, Steve. I'm s-so s-sorry. There's nothing I can ever do to—"

Steve sprung forward and wrapped his arms around his best friend. "There's nothing you have to do," he sobbed. "Nothing I want you to do. I'm just glad, Buck. Just so damn glad to see you."

When they parted six or seven minutes later, Steve tore his shirtsleeve when it got caught on Bucky's arm. "This damn thing is falling apart," Bucky explained as he tried to bend the rusty metal back into place. "They didn't bother trying to fix my body after they couldn't reclaim my mind and now…" Bucky gave up on bending and just yanked a gnarled, toothpick-sized chunk out. "Now this damn thing feels like it's going to turn to kindling at any second."

----------

PRESENT

Clichés become clichés because they're true, Steve mused when the grenade exploded and the scene around him went into slow motion. He could almost see his own skin burn even with the Hulk protecting him. And then the Big Guy went flying. Flying over them into a stone wall. The wall cracked from the floor on up. Steve watched, beyond shocked, as bowling-ball-sized chucks of rock began to rain down on them from the ceiling. They would've landed on Rogers, who was on the outer perimeter of the dogpile, if Bucky's mechanical arm hadn't swatted them away. Barnes protected Rogers, but the weight and force of the stone transformed the miniscule cracks in his arm into full fissures. A quarter of a second later, when the grenade blast lifted every single Avenger off their feet and sent them bouncing off of the walls, those fissures broke. The metal arm separated from the flesh-and-bone body.

Bucky's arm was a shrapnel bomb.

Suddenly everything in the blast radius was caught up in a shaken snow globe filled with sharp edges. Hundreds of grey-silver steel and aluminum slivers tore and pierced clothes and skin. Steve heard his teammates cry out in pain. Bodies ricocheted off of stone and bone to be sliced by shrapnel and seared by fire.

Steve blacked out.

He woke in time to see Bruce collapse, unconscious and face down, in the center of the newly-made crater. The last inches of green skin pushed out blood-stained pieces of shrapnel. He landed nearly on top Thor, who looked as lively as a corpse. Perpendicular to Thor was Clint who, in the massive confusion, had managed to wrap his own body halfway around Natasha's. He was spooned against her — both of their eyes were closed, both of their lips parted but immobile, blood dripping down their faces and necks and arms and everywhere else the shrapnel attacked. Tony lay on his side nearly parallel to the assassins. One arm was outstretched like he was reaching for Bruce, the other outstretched like he was reaching for Steve. Steve couldn't tell how deep his cuts were but his skin resembled Swiss cheese. Dark red blood pooled around Tony's head like a halo. Blood that wasn't his.

The blood was Bucky's. It flowed waterfall-fast out of his severed shoulder. Groaning, feeling like he was crawling through melting glass, Steve moved forward on all fours until he reached his friend. Bucky lay flat on his back, eyes wide and awake and staring, half shocked and half in awe at the sight of so much blood exiting his body so fast. Steve was no doctor, was never even trained as a basic field medic, but even he could tell that it was already too late. No tourniquet, no bandage, no going back…

"No," Steve bellowed. "Oh, God, no." He cupped Bucky's white face between his red palms and met his best friend's eyes. "I found you. I just found you again!" Steve pressed their foreheads together and sobbed, his voice cracking on every syllable, "Oh Buck, Bucky, Buck-y…"

"Worth it," Bucky whispered. His remaining hand clawed at the silver star on Steve's chest. "Getting recaptured, fighting the brainwashing, and this," he said, nodding at the pool of blood, "all worth it to see you again, to tell you I'm sorry. My… My brother…" He patted the star, and then rested his palm against Steve's tear-soaked cheek. "Miss you," Bucky whispered with more air than voice. "Miss you already…"

It happened in a blink. One moment Steve felt his friend's warm, calloused hand against his. One moment his eyes were wide and open and alive and then… And then his remaining arm went limp and landed with a splash of blood. A blink later, Bucky's eyes were aimed at Steve, but he was no longer seeing through them.

"NO-HO-OH-NOOOO!"

The choking scream that erupted from Steve's body was both a sob and a yell, a growl and a shriek. His wail echoed down every corridor of the base. It rippled the pool of blood like a minor earthquake. Steve pressed his nose against Bucky's and just wept.

Just enough time passed that Steve felt Bucky's temperature drop a degree or two. He recoiled. The shock hit him all over again. Every previous shock hit him again, including his parents' deaths. Including Coulson’s. He felt heavy. At the same time, he felt weightless. He sensed every drop of blood on his skin but also felt like his limbs were disconnected from his body. Part of him wanted to scream again and part of him wanted to take a lifelong vow of silence. He looked around, needing — not sure what, not sure who, not sure why — and discovered that Tony Stark was there, right there, kneeling behind him, both hands on his shoulders, comforting, both just applying pressure without patting or rubbing. Like Steve, his eyes were drowning.

Steve torpedoed himself at Tony's midsection. He pressed his nose as hard as he could against Tony's navel and sobbed.

To his credit, Tony neither flinched nor hesitated. He wrapped his arms around his friend's quivering body. He curled forward and pressed his face against the back of Steve's head. And he held still. Just held still and held Steve.

----------

They were on a back road halfway between Berlin and the coast of the Baltic Sea when the woman appeared in the middle of the road. Coulson nearly crashed the rental van into a ditch. Darcy, who'd been fast asleep with her boots propped up on the dashboard, screamed so loud that Melinda May reached around the seat and clasped both hands over her mouth. Eric Selvig dumped his coffee across his pants, Jane slammed her laptop shut and held it against her chest like it was a baby, and Sharon Carter took out both of her weapons and pointed them in opposite directions.

When Coulson stopped the car he closed his eyes and slowly lowered his forehead to the steering wheel. He exhaled slowly and released his grip even slower. Then he sat up straight and hit the button that unlocked the SUV's doors.

Sif sheathed her sword and squeezed into the car. She nodded at everyone, and everyone nodded back in greeting. Coulson cracked his neck to the left and to the right, put the SUV back in gear, and took off without a single word.

----------

Memories Tony Stark wished he'd never had:

1. The terrified look on Barton's typically calm face when Natasha shouted the dog-pile code.

2. The sound of the grenade. It was exactly like the Stark Industries missile in Afghanistan that blew up his life.

3. Green blood raining down on him as the Hulk flew overhead.

4. Silver pieces of metal whipped through the air like a blizzard. Something pierced his back. Low and on the left side. Maybe in his kidney.

5. Something in his left ankle pop-crunched when the brief tornado dropped him. Pain radiated up from his foot and down from his back, making his entire left leg unusable.

6. When he woke up and saw the dark blood flowing down the side of the crater, he thought Steve was hit. His heart tripped and skidded. But it was Barnes. Tony felt relieved, then hated himself for that same feeling.

7. The noise that erupted from Steve was the sound of a broken heart. Tony was far too familiar with that sound.

8. He crawled to Steve, his left leg dragging while his other three limbs did the heavy lifting. What else was there to do but touch his friend's shoulder? Even as Hydra soldiers surrounded the crater and aimed their guns, what else was there to do? One of the faceless soldiers said, "Looks like we'll have to postpone the arena games tonight, boys."

9. That look on Steve's face. The look of a man who'd lost his oldest friend twice. Three times if brainwashing counted — and it did. Stark wasn't necessarily the hugging type, and neither was Rogers, but Steve collapsed into Tony's embrace. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve's upper body and burrowed his nose into sweaty blond hair.

10. He wanted to warn Steve that his own pain and exhaustion were catching up to him. He tried to say "Cap" but managed only air. His hands rolled off of Steve's back and landed, limp, on the bloody, muddy ground. His cheekbone bounced off of Steve's ear as his head slid to the right. He landed, forehead-first and hard, against Steve's shoulder. "Tony?" Wet, calloused hands cupped his cheeks and raised his face. Tony tried to apologize for piling on to Cap's crappy day, to apologize for needing help when Steve needed his, but there was more darkness than light, and he couldn't breathe. Cap crying "Tony!" was the last thing he heard.

He woke up in a hospital. Or a lab. Maybe just some doctor's office. Wherever it was it smelled sterile. Smelled like home, or would have if there was also a hint of Pepper's perfume and the stench of burned circuits. He was lying on his stomach with his left cheek not against Cap's shoulder, but a cold metal table. Three feet to his right, also on a table, lay Barton, naked except for a white sheet up to his waist. A figure in a white uniform had just finished bandaging his shoulder and started stitching up an extra-nasty gash above his eyebrow.

Barton woke up just as the figure stepped away. His aqua-emerald eyes blinked, explored the white room, and eventually met Tony's russet ones. Stark's arm was already outstretched. Clint reached. Fingers grazed, and then hands clasped — tight, reassuring, comforting. Barton was in bad shape. Tony's stomach clenched when he remembered finding Hawkeye hanging in that prison cell. He looked just as lousy now — perhaps even paler. Not actually knowing what he was going to say, Tony croaked, "Clint—" but right then a rough hand grasped his wrist and yanked it away from Barton. Tony groaned as his arm was twisted behind his back and then pinned down by a grown man's weight.

"I was worried you wouldn't wake up," the man hissed in Tony's ear. It took Stark a few seconds to recognize him as Sufyan "The Superior" Tsyganov. Yet another Hydra thug Tony had the misfortune of meeting. "There are just some things a man shouldn't miss out on, you know?" His breath was hot against Tony's neck. Tsyganov let Tony's arm go and walked around the table. Stark looked for Clint but the archer had passed out again. Tsyganov reappeared, rolling a stool over to sit on, blocking Barton from Tony's sight once again.

"Where are we?" Tony demanded. "Where's the rest of my team?"

Tsyganov scratched his one remaining ear, and then the tip of his nose. "Let's make a deal," he said. "You answer two of my questions, and I'll answer one of yours. Now, which one of your questions would you like answered first?"

Tony narrowed his eyes like a bird of prey. "Where are my friends?"

"Recovering, like you. I need you all in at least a little bit of shape to put on a good show. If you'd bothered to look, you'd find Rogers and Romanoff on your left." Tony tried, then. Tried to turn over, but he was strapped down flat on the table. He could shimmy a centimeter left or a centimeter right, but that was all. "Thor, well, let's just say we put him on ice. I don't trust that poison to keep him at bay much longer, even if it is from Asgard."

"How did you get—"

"And your buddy Banner is in The Hold. We've had a few days to study him and I think we've found an elegant solution to keeping him and that beast inside him contained. Enough electricity to kill a hundred men is zapping him every five seconds. Should keep him out of my hair — if it doesn't kill him."

"How—" Tony tried again.

"Shhh!" The Superior pressed his forefinger against his lips and shushed Stark. "My turn." He flicked the tip of Stark's nose almost playfully. "Tell me," he whispered, "do you know what this is?" Tsyganov slipped on a thick glove and took a small stone out of a plastic container lined with rubber. He held it between two fingers barely an inch from Tony's eyes.

Stark blinked. "No," he answered honestly. "I'm sure you would look lovely wearing it on a gold chain, though. A long one — get a gown with a deep neckline."

Tsyganov revealed yellow teeth when he grinned. "This was the prize in the cracker jacks box. It popped out of the scepter Rogers destroyed. I promised that scepter to someone. Maybe I'll use this to make Rogers apologize to him directly." Tsyganov flipped the jewel into the air and caught it in his palm. "All we know so far is that this little thing is what gave the scepter its power," he said. "We've experimented with it on a few… volunteers… and it's definitely the source of the mind control. And something else…"

"Something else?"

Tsyganov ignored Stark. "Question number two. Senator Stern and Mr. Hammer are in a bidding war. The winner gets to have the pleasure of killing you. How much money will you give me to spare your life?"

Tony felt a tingle across his skin like someone had poured ice water down his back. "You're auctioning off our lives?"

That Tsyganov grin again. "You're winning. You're beating your friends. Your death is apparently worth more than any of theirs."

Stark rolled his eyes. "Great. Where's my trophy?"

Tsyganov's hot breath blasted Tony in the face when he laughed.

"My turn."

"You didn't answer my question," Tsyganov pointed out.

Tony edged as close to The Superior as he could. "I'm not giving you a penny. I'll need that money to build a big-ass missile to blow you and your friends up."

The Superior looked less than shocked at Tony's response. "How much will you give me to set your friends free?" he whispered. "Give me a few hundred million for each of them and they can walk out right now."

Tony struggled to hold onto his poker face. "It's my turn to ask a question." Without waiting for Tsyganov's permission, he asked, "Where did you get the Asgardian poison?"

Tsyganov's sneer reminded Tony of Obadiah Stane's pomposity. "From the same man I promised the scepter to."

The shrapnel wound in Tony's back announced itself right then. Whatever pain medications they'd given him must have worn off. "Loki is dead," he whispered. "Thor saw him die."

Tsyganov's face and chest trembled like he was laughing, but his throat made no sound. "Correct me if I'm wrong but Loki, the Trickster God, has fooled his brother in the past by making him see him when he wasn't there. That's what tricksters do. Make men see what isn't there." Tsyganov held up the stone again. "Funnily enough, that's what this gem does, too."

Tony inched away. "I won't give you my money," he said, answering Tsyganov's earlier question. "Even if it sets them free. You'd use it to destroy this world. I know they'd all agree that our lives aren't worth that."

"Spoken like a true hero." Tsyganov returned the jewel to its casing and pocketed it and the glove away. "No matter. There's another bidder who has an enormous cache of Vibranium hidden somewhere along the African coast. He's willing to pay me thousands of pounds of Vibranium to choke the life out of you himself." Before Tony could ask, Tsyganov said, "Arms dealer by the name of Ulysses Klaus. Arms dealer who went from rich to broke when he could no longer purchase Stark munitions, thanks to you."

Stark snorted. "That pipsqueak would need four hands to even reach around my throat."

"Oh, oh, forgive me," Tsyganov begged, "I should've chosen my words more carefully. I doubt he'll choose to choke the life out of you literally. He'll do something slower. Like me he's… patient." Tony recoiled when Tsyganov slipped a scalpel out of his white coat. The silver blade caught the infirmary's fluorescent lights and briefly blinded him. "My turn to ask a question, yes? Yes." Gently, with practiced ease, Tsyganov set the blade against Tony's temple and opened up a slice of skin only a millimeter long and a millimeter thick. "Tell me. How deep do I have to cut to find that bio-tech you use to summon your armor?"

Tony attempted to hold perfectly still. "Deep enough to kill me," he whispered like a ventriloquist, not moving his lips. "Which means you won't get your big payday."

"Oh, I won't go looking for it until after you're dead," Tsyganov said. "I just wanted to shave a few minutes off the autopsy. I was thinking about sending what's left of your head to that pretty little girlfriend of yours. It won't smell so bad if I overnight it, right?" Tony clenched his teeth and growled. "There he is," Tsyganov whispered approvingly. "Raza spoke of the Tony Stark spirit. Said he knew you were something special even as they water boarded you." Tsyganov chuckled to himself. "You hold onto that, Tony. You'll need that spirit in the arena tomorrow. You're not allergic to cats, are you?"

---------

Helicopter blades flattened grass and stirred up the cold Vistula River water as half a dozen SHIELD helicopters landed on the outskirts of Warsaw. Fury and Hill jumped out of the lead craft with Fitz in tow. A mobile buzzed in the smaller man's pocket and he hung back from the main crowd to check his messages. There was still no word about Jemma, Skye, and Bobbi, but Coulson and his charges made it to the Baltic Sea and rendezvoused with Helicarrier No. 64. After days of preparation, SHIELD was nearly mobilized. A second brigade was due to join the first by the end of the day. And then it was just a matter of time before the Helicarrier and SHIELD's main forces joined the fun. Then, at their full strength, they would start to search the evacuated city for the Hydra stronghold. For the missing Avengers.

It was the blond, nearly white hair that caught Fitz's eye. White hair sticking up from the Vistula River bank like a gopher peeking out of its hole. Fitz started to walk, then sprint when he realized that hair belonged to a body. Two bodies. Two people half-submerged in the cold water. The woman was conscious. She was pale with long brown hair. Her whole body trembled as she struggled to lift the white-haired man onto dry ground. Blood caked his left side — nearly his entire left arm. He was unconscious, at best. Fitz grabbed the man's right arm and pulled until every part of his body from the knees up was out of the water. The woman reached for him, and clung when he offered his open arms.

"Oh my god, are you all right?" Fitz asked the girl. He shed his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"Thank you," she said through clattering teeth. "M-My brother. He is breathing, yes?"

Fitz patted her shoulder and moved to the man's side. "He's alive," he confirmed. "What happened? Where did you come from? Who shot him?" When the woman didn't answer, Fitz adjusted his approach. "We're here to help. I'm Agent Leo Fitz with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Call me Fitz — you can call me Fitz. What's your name?"

The girl pulled the jacket tight across her body and rubbed her arms. "Wanda," she whispered. "My name's Wanda."

Both froze at the sound of a gun being cocked. "Back away from them, Agent Fitz," Maria Hill ordered from directly behind him. "Back away quickly. Those two are with Hydra."

----------

Tony did NOT like the sound of CATS. Naturally, Stark-style, he deflected. "Who are you?" he whispered. Tony studied the narrow lips, yellow teeth, angry eyebrows, shoulder-length silver hair and single ear. "You LIVE on the black market if you know how to contact Klaus and Raza, and spring Hammer and Stern out of jail. You orchestrated one hell of an elaborate plot to capture us. And you got Asgardian-grade poison from LOKI? Who — you and your brother — who are you?"

The Superior gently slid his scalpel into Tony's temple again — barely deeper than a papercut. A second hash mark parallel to the first. "You really want to know?"

"Yes."

The light changed in Tsyganov's eyes. "Another deal, then. Like our questions. I'll give you one hint for every two incisions." His words faded to a snake-like hiss. Tony blanched when Tsyganov held up the red-stained scalpel. "I'm putting this knife in your body anyway, so you might as well get something in return."

Tony ached for Clint's hand again. For a friendly touch of any kind. "Two for one. What a deal — for you."

"I don’t have a brother. Joseph Tsyganov is a clone," Sufyan Tsyganov said. "The Tycoon is my clone, not my twin." He dragged the scalpel through Tony's skin again — a longer cut that curved twice. A shorter slice followed. Tony winced extra-hard when it connected the two parallel marks.

"Lousy clue," Tony growled between his clenched teeth. "Lots of men don't have families and any man can be cloned."

Tsyganov clucked his tongue. "True," he said without a hint of remorse. "Let me help you narrow it down." When he spoke again his accent was German, not Russian. "I was born in a German village." His eyes looked past Tony — whether at Rogers or Romanoff, Stark wasn't sure. "My father was a bastard."

Tony clenched his eyes shut as the scalpel returned to his temple. He felt two more parallel cuts. "So was mine," he said in that tone of voice equivalent to a shrug.

Tsyganov chuckled. He lowered his voice so that Tony was the only one in the room who could possibly hear him. "Howard Stark. I was born just a few years before he was. I'm as old as the Captain."

"So was Bucky Barnes until you killed him—" Tony's eyes flew open — wide open. He stared into Tsyganov's eyes but found no lies. "Why is it that every 90-year-old I've met looks 30? Well, more like 50 in your case." Tony looked again for any indication that Tsyganov was lying. He saw none.

Tsyganov rubbed his chin like he was checking for a five o'clock shadow. "This face does age me. Perhaps I'll get a younger one next time." He tugged on his ear lobe, pulling it much further from his skull than he should've been able to.

Tears stung Tony's eyes as the knife attacked again. "Next time?" he whispered.

Tsyganov tugged on his own cheek. "You superheroes wear masks. So do supervillains. Ready for another clue?" The cuts were getting deeper. Blood dripped down Tony's cheekbone to the corner of his lips. Tony steeled himself. "Have you ever been to Niflheim, Mr. Stark? Has Thor given you the grand tour of the nine worlds?"

"Haven't had the pleasure yet."

"I don't recommend it. Niflheim is right above Helheim. You've heard of that, of course."

Tony licked his lips. "Hell." The pain in his head, kidney, and left leg was starting to get to him, starting to make him tired.

"That's where I met Loki. Long before you met him. Even before he betrayed Thor. As a matter of fact, he's one of my oldest friends. Well, maybe 'friend' isn't the word. Business partner, perhaps."

"And you got to Niflheim… how?"

"The Tesseract, of course," Tsyganov said matter-of-factly in his German accent. "Not that I went on purpose."

"Right." Stark gave an exaggerated sigh, bored.

Tsyganov's nostrils flared. "You don't believe me?"

"Do I believe that you're a 90-year-old German in a flesh mask who cloned himself and traveled to another world? Sure, man, whatever you say…" Tony rolled his eyes. A regrettable decision with Swiss-cheese skin…

"The ghost tracks. The ones that my train took — the train that brought you here — I remember when they were built. And this facility. This entire underground structure. I remember when it was built. Less than six months after we invaded Poland."

"We…" Tony pondered. His mouth was open when the scalpel dug in again, and he couldn't stifle a yelp. "You were… a Nazi…"

"I was ABOVE the Nazis." Tsyganov held his chin high — like a king trying to balance the crown on his head. "And I can't help but wonder how this world's history would be different if I'd killed Captain America when I had the chance…" Tsyganov's eyes shone wide and proud. He lifted the scalpel away and put his elbow on his knee. "Should I keep digging, Mr. Stark, or would you like to solve the puzzle?"

Tony pretended to be interested in the tile on the floor where his dripping blood was accumulating. "I know who you are," he said quietly, "because you just carved your name into my skin…"

Tsyganov grinned maniacally and got to his feet. "Say it."

"I have to admit it's pretty badass to build a gladiator arena in the shape of your own head. Maybe I'll design an Iron Man-shaped beach volleyball court."

"Say it!" Tsyganov demanded.

Tony grinned. Finally, as meek and pathetic as it was, he had leverage. "Nah."

"NOW!" The Superior bellowed. He lowered the scalpel to Tony's throat.

Tony spit a wad of blood onto the floor. "Bite me."

"Hey!" a new voice shouted. "Pick on someone your own... strength." Steve. Steve was awake. Tsyganov kicked his stool aside and walked around Tony to where Rogers lay on his back on the third table. The yelling roused Clint as well. The archer's eyebrows wrinkled with empathy when he saw the new damage to Stark's head. His eyes skimmed back and forth when he realized that the scalpel trails spelled a word. A name that he could read a million times and still not believe. Tony actually saw shallow water accumulate in Clint's eyes…

Meanwhile, Tsyganov approached Steve, twirling the bloody scalpel between his fingers like a baton. Re-drugged, and covered in lacerations as much as the rest of them, Steve glared up from his back as his arch nemesis approached. "I wondered what happened when you touched the Cube," Cap whispered. "I thought it destroyed you."

"It transported me. And when the true king of Asgard assumed his adopted father's throne, he sent me back." Tsyganov lowered the knife to Cap's face. "Say my name."

"Show me your real face." Steve whispered. He glanced around at the various doctors and nurses in the infirmary, at Natasha on his right and Tony and Clint on his left. "Show everyone here your real face, and I will."

Tsyganov obliged without hesitation. He grabbed his one ear and pulled. Skin and hair peeled off with a wet, sticky series of crunches. Doctors gasped and nurses retreated in shock. In seconds the skin was gone, revealing a blood-red skull.

The slight surprise on Steve's face betrayed the fact that he was still holding out a bit of hope that his guess was wrong. "Shmidt," he whispered. "Johann Shmidt."

"Holy Shmidt, we're screwed," Tony quipped under his breath.

---------

When the Red Skull – THE Red Skull revealed himself, Grant Ward was tempted to, like half the rest of the guards in the infirmary, get the hell out of there. For some reason the visceral stomach-clench reaction to seeing the deformed super-soldier was stranger than the realization that the legend was still alive — actually alive and THERE. Ward had one hell of a report to give to Coulson…

The Red Skull's appearance was also a final straw of sorts. Ward had to act whether he had SHIELD backup or not. He had to get at least one of them out of there. So when Ward and the rest of the guards were instructed to transport the prisoners to a cell, he made sure that he was part of Natasha's detail. Not even she noticed when he emptied a small syringe into the back of her arm.

---------

Ulysses Klaus busted into the Red Skull Arena VIP box with a bottle of champagne in each tanned, calloused hand. “Ah, gentlemen!” he said by way of greeting the other occupants, “how lovely of you to save me some shrimp!”

Senator Stern, Raza, Justin Hammer, and Strucker all stared at the newcomer with varying degrees of curiosity and disdain. Strucker wiped his face with a cloth napkin and rose to shake Klaus’ hand. “I imagine you’re Ulysses. I see you brought champagne. Did you also bring the Vibranium?”

Spittle erupted from Klaus when he laughed. Hammer’s nose wrinkled and he pushed his plate away with one manicured finger. “Uh, did these blokes walk in with paper money? No? Then why would I have my currency on me, eh, mate?” Strucker pursed his lips but kept them clamped. He gestured for Klaus to take his seat and ordered one of the guards, Ward, to fetch more food. “My, my, would you look at that,” Klaus hummed as he looked through the window down at the skull-shaped arena. “Bet you blokes put on quite a show here. What’s with the red sand?”

“Part of the show, Herr Klaus,” said a new voice. “A reminder of Hydra’s roots — and its future.” The Red Skull himself entered the room and every man in it leapt to his feet and backed up against the window. Schmidt chuckled at the feral fear on their faces. “Please refrain from pissing yourselves, gentlemen.”

“Tsyganov?” Strucker gasped, his eyes on Schmidt’s Hydra uniform. “Sir?”

“Strucker,” Schmidt greeted. “Is there room for Amelia and I?” The Red Skull stepped aside to reveal a young girl with him. No older than five, the girl was blonde and held a bouquet of wildflowers and mistletoe in her frail white hands. One second she was standing there and the next – in less than the time it took anyone in the little audience to blink – she was replaced by a tall, slim, black-haired man in a green cloak.

Loki chuckled when Hammer shrieked not unlike a five-year-old girl. “So these are the soft men who failed to destroy Tony Stark,” he said to Red Skull. “No wonder he’s such an arrogant tool.” He turned up his nose at the group and said, “You’re all here to pay for the privilege of destroying the Avengers. Who’s the lowest bidder in this room?”

Strucker didn’t speak, but his eyes flickered in one specific direction. Before anyone could react, Loki reached a gloved hand into his pocket, retrieved the Mind Gem, and slammed it into the space between Raza’s eyes. Yellow briefly coated the man like a second skin, and his eyes shifted to black and onto blue.

----------

“Hydra’s largest armory on the continent is hidden under an elementary school?” Fury massaged his forehead and sighed. “Is that sector evacuated?”

Maria Hill nodded. She took the black permanent marker back from Wanda Maximoff, rotated the paper map towards them and drew an “x” over every block that SHIELD had cleared. “We’ve checked every place west of the Vistula River. You crawled out of this sewer line here, but where’s the main entrance?”

“I am not sure.” Wanda hugged her arms around her torso and ducked her head. “We were transported there at night. I remember seeing the signs and hearing the water. We were above ground and then we were under it. I am not sure how.”

Pietro sat slumped beside her in the helicopter, scowling as Fitz tightened the bandage around his shot up arm. “We told you where their base is and we drew you a map of the interior,” he said between clenched teeth. “Now, will you let us go?”

Fury’s nostrils flared. “The Avengers helped you escape. Tony Stark saved your sister’s life, and you’re just going to leave?” he growled.

Maximoff didn’t cower from Fury’s glare. “What’s in it for me if I don’t leave?”

Fury switched tactics. He sat on a bench across from the twins with his hands folded across his knees. “The Avengers helped you escape,” he repeated gently. “Tony Stark saved your sister’s life.”

Pietro rolled his eyes. “Well when you put it that way — go to hell!”

Wanda took his hand. “Pietro.”

Pietro flinched like she’d scratched him. “Did you forget what he did to our parents?”

“It was…” Wanda’s throat clogged and she had to swallow twice to clear it. “It was his name on those missiles, but that does not mean that he pulled the trigger. What we do know for certain is that he saved me. The right thing to do is to try to save him. That is what our mother and father would have us do.”

A chirp from Fury’s pocket interrupted Pietro’s reply. The former director hit the speaker button on his cell and held it in his palm for everyone to hear. “Coulson. Report.”

Static on the line briefly garbled Phil Coulson’s voice. “I just heard from Ward. Good news, bad news, and worst news. First good news is that Skye, Simmons, and Bobbi are alive. Ward spotted them imprisoned in there, but they’re ok. Good news number two is that Ward used the same serum you used to fake your death to fake Romanoff’s. He’s retrieving her from the morgue, and once he frees the girls, too, we’ll have five agents moving freely on the inside.” Coulson hesitated. “Bad news is that Johann Schmidt is alive. The Red Skull himself is in that base.”

Hill snorted. “How is that not the WORST news?”

“The worst news: Loki is alive. Loki and the Red Skull have teamed up. And they’re starting the arena games at dawn.”

Fury and Hill exchanged wide-eyed glances. Fury took a slow inhale and an even slower exhale. “How far out are you, Coulson?”

“At top speed we’re still half a day from your location, Sir.”

“Dammit. Foster’s calculations?”

“In progress, Sir.”

“The Stark tech?”

“Ready to go.” Silence on the line for half a minute, and then, “Sir? Sir, a Hydra army, Schmidt, AND Loki… What do we do, Sir?”

Fury’s eyes leveled with the Maximoff’s. “We better come up with one hell of a plan.”

----------

The cage wheeled into the arena must have been stolen from a circus, or possibly a zoo. Seven-foot-high iron bars, corroded metal grating for a floor, it was about fifteen feet long and ten wide. It was swept out but still stank of animal. Thick, dusty maroon curtains blocked out the majority of the light and cast a reddish glow across the Avengers who spent the night locked inside. Steve slept most of the time, thanks to whatever sedatives Hydra pumped into his system to curb his strength. Tony slept in ten or fifteen minute restless bouts. Barton hadn’t spoken since Romanoff collapsed while they were being escorted to the arena. They all heard the Hydra medics announce that her heart had stopped.

At some point during the night Thor and Banner were tossed in. The demigod was so drugged up that he could barely speak, and he kept hallucinating that Barton’s leg was Mjolnir. More than once he flirted with Steve, imagining him to be Jane. Banner huddled in the corner like an abused kitten. Strucker had surgically inserted some sort of device into the skin layers just above Bruce’s heart. Every five minutes, electricity surged through Banner’s nerves like he’d been struck by lightning. He got zapped again anytime his bodily systems started to “go green.” Any sudden rise in his blood pressure or pulse rate and ZAP.

It was Tony who broke the silence the following morning as the five men ate a breakfast of granola bars and peanut butter crackers and listened to the Hydra agents filling the arena bleachers outside the curtains. “Show’s about to start,” he said. “You up for this, Cap? Hawkeye?”

“Moose aren’t ghosts,” Thor said from the floor. A steady stream of drool leaked from his mouth.

Tony patted his shoulder. “That’s right, buddy.”

Rogers and Barton looked only slightly healthier than corpses in a riverbed. Stark would’ve used a cattle prod on them if he could, but all he had was a reminder: “Barnes and Romanoff are dead, guys. Get over it.” Murderous eyes were better than dead eyes. At least that’s what Tony told himself when the two men glared daggers at him. Murderous eyes meant that his friends were awake, and ready to fight.

Barton knew that punching Stark in the teeth was a waste of energy, but he did it anyway. Tony ended up flat on his back. “There’s the Barton I know and love,” Stark sighed, wiping the blood away from his busted lip. “You hear those roars out there, buddy? You ready to take on those tigers?”

“Lions.” Barton collapsed back down on the floor beside Cap and tried and failed to hug every wound on his body. “I grew up in a Carnival. Went to every circus in the northern hemisphere. We’re about to go into the lion’s den, boys.”

“How do we fight lions?” Bruce grunted.

“You don’t fight lions.” Barton sighed, leaned his head back against the bars and shut his eyes. “You tame them, or you run.”

Tony tucked his arms behind his head like he was watching clouds cross the sky. “Nowhere to run. How do we tame them?”

“No clue. I was a professional pooper-scooper.” A beat passed, and then a chuckle erupted from deep within Clint’s chest. Cap rubbed both palms down his face and when they passed over his mouth a lazy smile appeared like magic. Tony rolled over onto his stomach, punched the floor once, and then sat up across from his teammates, laughing. Thor joined in, but only because he thought that a bloodstain on Tony’s shirt looked like Nick Fury with antlers.

Outside in the arena, the audience of Hydra agents started to chant. The words were indecipherable at first but once they got louder, they were clear: “Death. To. Avengers. Death. To. Avengers. DEATH. TO. AVENGERS!”

----------

The morgue was three walls of drawers stacked five up and ten across. Ward had neither the time nor the desire to check every one of them for Romanoff’s comatose body, so he used his SHIELD-issue cell phone to scan for the Vibranium he gave her. The app found the rare metal, but it was beyond a door in the corner marked “Janitor.” Ward took a deep breath, and shouldered open the door — a door that was so thick that it had to be the entrance to some sort of bomb shelter.

The unconscious man strapped into some sort of upright table contraption glowed from the inside out as though he had lava for blood. Ward arrived just in time to see the metal arm that had been blown up by the grenade regenerate itself into a living, functional limb. “EXTREMIS,” Ward gasped, recognizing the effects of the virus from surveillance footage.

Strucker was experimenting with Extremis, and Bucky Barnes was his latest guinea pig.

---------

The glass windows of the VIP suite retracted into the bleachers. “Hail Hydra!” Strucker said into the microphone. The crowd repeated the phrase, then cheered even louder when Strucker introduced Johann Schmidt himself. A small blonde girl sitting at the table between Hammer and Klaus tossed her flowers into the air in celebration. “Bets are in for round one!” Strucker announced. “Let the games begin!”

The Red Skull Arena vibrated from the force of a thousand men shouting, clapping, and stamping their feet. Barriers replaced the floor seats and blocked the view from the first three rows, turning the ring into a pit. Hydra agents moved the wheeled lion cage against the wall after the Avengers were released from it, all five of them stinking of whatever buffet of raw meat the lions last shared in that crate. Strucker gestured for the agents to open the tunnel to the prison cells, and to the audience’s delight, three starved male lions padded into the arena. Each was about five feet tall, 350+ pounds, and eight feet long with two-inch claws and three-inch teeth. Music worthy of a WWE match belted from hidden speakers. The starved lions bared their teeth, stuck out their tongues and tasted the stenches in the arena.

“I haven’t showered in three days. I can’t possibly smell as delicious as I usually look,” said Tony Stark. The Avengers stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Banner was at the end of the row, standing a foot away from Tony to keep from passing on the electricity periodically assaulting his body and containing the Hulk.

On Stark’s left, Steve shouldered half of Thor’s weight as the demigod swayed, weak and delirious, from the drugs. “Thor, report,” Cap requested once their guards were out of earshot and the crowd drowned out their voices.

“I am far from my full strength, Captain, but I am in my right mind,” Thor whispered. “And I can sense Mjolnir, though I cannot say when it will return to me.” Then, in a booming voice that made the crowd laugh, he declared, “I shall defeat you, applesauce!”

Rogers rolled his eyes. “Dial it back a little, Thor. The meds would’ve worn off a bit by now.”

“Sorry,” Thor whispered.

Barton had Thor’s left arm across his own shoulders. “You should’ve been an actor instead of a warrior, big guy,” Clint whispered. “This act of yours almost fooled even me.”

“Any advice about lions, Pooper Scooper?” Tony asked Clint.

“Hold them off from Thor as long as you can,” Steve reminded him.

“Stand your ground,” Clint advised. “If they charge, move your arms and try to look big and threatening.”

Tony made a face. “Hope they don’t drool on me.”

Banner looked sidelong at his friends. “Plan B is still an option,” he reminded them.

“We’re not there yet,” said Tony. “Stay behind us. Just stay behind us, Bruce.”

“Until… when? Until you go down? Two of you? All of you?”

“You’re hurt.”

“You’re hurt! Barton got shot, for God’s sake!” Panic started to rise in Bruce’s chest and in his voice. “None of us are in any shape for—”

“Plan A,” said Steve. “We’ll survive this as a team. Plan A until I say differently.”

“Or until you get eaten,” Bruce sighed.

The crowd hooted. A brave agent with a cattle prod stabbed one of the lions and then retreated, rodeo clown-style, over the wall. As one, the three lions padded forward.

“Ready?” Steve looked at his team. “Plan A: GO!”

Tony, Clint, and Steve stepped forward and spread their arms out wide, keeping the lions’ attention while Thor and Banner sprinted full-speed back to the cage against the wall. Bruce slid under the crate and hid behind one of the wheels while Thor wrapped both hands around one of the thick iron bars. Sweat bloomed from his pores and a growl of frustration from his chest as the bar bent.

---------

The last time that Phil Coulson stood at the Helicarrier’s conference table it was with Iron Man, Captain America, Bruce Banner, Thor, Fury, Hill, and the Black Widow. They were the most formidable muscles and minds to ever sit at that table… Until now.

There was Dr. Jane Foster who sat typing on her laptop, flanked by Darcy and Dr. Selvig. Sif sat next to Darcy and eyed the computer like it was a pair of jaws about to clamp down on the puny mortal’s fingers. On her left — trying very hard not to stare at the beautiful Asgardian — sat one-third of Coulson’s team: Hunter, Trip, and Mack. Rhodes and Wilson were next, whispering, two soldiers exchanging war stories. Agent Melinda May and Agent Sharon Carter hovered over a map of Poland and pointed at it as they compared notes. In the back corner of the deck, Sam Koenig and Happy Hogan stood guard over the scene, both scowling like teachers at a gymnasium full of kindergarteners.

Lastly, directly on Coulson’s right, sat Pepper Potts. Since she’d boarded the Helicarrier and found out that her friend was alive, Pepper hadn’t allowed Coulson out of arm’s reach. She smiled at him now, and gave him a reassuring pat on the top of his hand. “They’re here,” she told him, looking past his shoulder.

The double doors at the rear of the deck opened and Nick Fury emerged with Hill, Fitz, and the Maximoff Twins. “Hope you don’t mind that we brought some extra help, Director,” Fury said to Coulson.

Phil nodded at Pietro and Wanda. “I welcome it.”

“Didn’t mean them.” Fury nodded at Hill. Maria flipped open a laptop and set it on the table. On it, live on the video feed and gathered in a tight clump in front of a cell phone camera were two familiar faces: Natasha Romanoff and Grant Ward.

Coulson touched the screen as if he could touch Natasha. “Agent Romanoff,” he gasped, “what’s your situation?”

“We’re in Strucker’s lab, a hundred meters from the arena,” Natasha reported with a scowl. “Barnes is alive, and we know what cell Skye, Simmons, and Mockingbird are in.”

“The other Avengers?”

“In the arena,” said Ward. “Strucker and Red Skull started the games.”

“What’s the plan, boss?” Natasha asked impatiently.

All eyes, including Fury’s, looked to Coulson. Coulson looked at Foster. “Ready?” he asked her. She nodded. “Ready?” he asked Rhodes and Wilson. They gave him a thumb’s up, and so did May. Coulson leaned his palms against the table and looked around the table. “All right, everyone, here’s the plan…”

---------

Steve Rogers dove under a pouncing lion like a baseball player into home plate. The beast slammed into the barrier wall, but not before slicing Cap’s left shoulder with its claw. Red droplets turned the burgundy sand black. Steve took half a moment to check the wound, which was when a second lion jumped. It would’ve landed on his back, but Clint tackled Steve out of the way. Lion number three twitched on the ground. Thor had dislodged one of the cage’s iron bars like a match from a matchbook and skewered the beast into the floor. Thor called out to them then, and Steve turned to catch a second iron weapon. The two Avengers backed up towards Tony, who was on one knee and struggling not to collapse onto two.

“Stark, get up,” Rogers gasped. “Get up, Tony.” One lion got too close to Stark. Steve swung the pole and smacked its snout. A thousand Hydra agents hooted at them and tossed fistfuls of popcorn over the wall.

“Hold them off, Cap.” Barton yanked Tony to his feet and helped him limp back over to the cage. He rolled under the cage with Banner. Thor unhooked another pole and he and the archer rushed back to Cap’s side. The two lions roared and spurted forward briefly before retreating, slowly driving Hawkeye, Thor and the Captain backwards. Twenty more steps and they would be cornered against the west wall.

“Tony?” Bruce reached out to touch Tony’s arm but recoiled when a scheduled burst of electricity ricocheted across every nerve of his body. He cried out in pain and slumped against the cage’s front right wheel. “Tony, I have to do it. I have to try.”

Tony held both arms tourniquet-tight around his stomach. “No plan B, Bruce,” he gasped. “You’ll bleed out.”

“Cap’s bleeding out,” Bruce grunted. “And you — Tony…”

“I’m fine.” Tony ignored the blood pooling in his bellybutton. “Bruce, if you try to rip that device out of your own chest it could kill you. It WILL kill you.”

“Tony—”

“Listen to me!” Tony pleaded. “I’d bet my dad’s fortune that thing isn’t just connected to your heart, Bruce, it’s ATTACHED to it. If the Hulk pulls it out, he’ll pull the organ out with it! Hell, he’ll rip out your entire rib cage!”

“I always survive!”

Stark’s cheeks went three shades past red. “Have you tried surviving without a heart?”

A new scream echoed. One of the lions clamped its jaws around Thor’s left leg. Clint launched a pole like a javelin, which startled the beast long enough for the demigod to roll out of its grip. Earsplitting, angry, rumbling roars turned towards Barton. The lion charged. Clint stood his ground. Steve rushed to his teammate’s side and both men held an iron pole between them. Brief nods of understanding preceded their own shouts of rage. They started running and, like knights jousting on horses, managed to ram the pole straight down the lion’s throat. The two men added all of their speed and weight to the attack, then somersaulted out of the way before the jungle cat could reach them with its claws. The second lion fell beside the first, groaned and whined for half a minute, and then went still.

“See? They got this,” Stark gasped. He grinned at Bruce. Blood speckled his teeth. “No need for plan B.”

Lion number three leapt over its fallen brothers, zigzagged between Thor, Clint, and Steve, and stampeded towards the cage. Before Tony could protest, Banner rolled forward and stood between him and the beast. “Plan C!” Bruce declared. No Hulk emerged from his body but the electricity did, and as soon as the lion clamped onto his arm, it spasm-ed as if struck by lightning.

---------

Natasha found the coil of Vibranium stuck to the inside of Barnes’ pant leg. “It must’ve slipped out of my pocket when that grenade hit us,” she reasoned.

“Good thing that happened or we never would’ve found him,” said Ward. He finished unstrapping Bucky’s arms and legs and, together, they lowered the Winter Soldier to the floor of the “closet.” “Is, uh, is it a good thing, Nat?”

Natasha knelt beside Barnes and examined his pale face. Every few seconds a burst of Extremis energy turned his skin orange. His eyes rolled beneath their lids as he started to regain consciousness. “We’ll find out in a second,” she whispered.

----------

“Deep breath, pumpkin,” Darcy advised.

“Don’t call me ‘pumpkin’ when I’m operating an artificial wormhole.” Jane Foster ruffled up her white lab coat and tossed it into one corner of the Helicarrier’s cargo hold.

A computer squirmed with alarms. Erik reviewed the data and nodded. “Calculations complete. We’ve locked onto the Vibranium. We’re ready.” He gestured at the spray-painted red circle in the center of the room. “Stand there, please.”

May, Hill, and Carter marched into the circle, all decked out in their SHIELD uniforms and weapons. Hunter, Mack, and Trip tailed them, wheeling three carts of supplies. Coulson followed them to the edge of the circle and stopped there. “Stick to the plan,” he reminded the group. “Romanoff and Ward took out the surveillance systems and they’re waiting with Skye, Simmons, and Bobbi. You’ll have half an hour before we send in the strike team.”

“Roger that,” Hill acknowledged.

Fury stood at Coulson’s side. “Ladies, gentlemen, the Avengers might not have much time, so whether you’re ready for us or not, we’re going in the second that Dr. Foster’s equipment charges up again. Be careful, but be quick.”

“The wormhole will only be open for a minute. When you see the cafeteria, get moving right away or you could get stuck in Helheim.” Foster eyed the power fluctuations in her machines. “Now or never,” she warned.

Fury and Coulson stepped back. “Do it,” the director ordered.

---------

Natasha was just about to call Coulson when light suddenly enveloped the Hydra base’s cafeteria. She and Ward ducked behind a table and only peeked out once the glare faded. Hill, May, Carter, Trip, Hunter, and Mack appeared dazed but unharmed. Sharon picked up the piece of Vibranium at her feet, smiled, and tossed it back to Natasha. After brief reunions with Skye, Simmons, and Bobbi, they started passing out the supplies.

Natasha climbed on top of a table so that everyone could see her, and she could see all of them. “Guys,” she called once they were ready, “I want to introduce you to the Win—to Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky emerged, shyly. Rivulets of lava ran beneath his skin like blood vessels, but after a deep breath he suppressed them. “Here to help,” Bucky grunted, raising his two flesh-and-bone arms as if in surrender. “Maybe don’t shake my hand.”

May and Hill exchanged looks. “Nat, are you sure about this?” Maria wondered.

“He’ll do anything to help Steve,” Romanoff confirmed. “Why are you here?”

Hill nodded. “To do anything to help Steve. Ok.”

“Here’s the plan.” Natasha made a show of taking the safeties off of every gun in her possession. “Half of us need to secure the armory while the other half go to the arena. We’ve got to keep the Avengers alive until the strike team gets in.” She looked at each person and measured their strengths. “I need sharpshooters with me and muscle at the armory. Ward?”

Grant called, “With me: Simmons, Skye, Hunter, Mack, Trip, Hill, and Carter.”

“I need Hill,” Natasha said. “I need at least five.”

“Let’s do it.” Ward led his team out the door, leaving Hill, Bucky, Mockingbird, and May with Natasha.

“Our job,” Natasha said to her team, “is to get the piece of Vibranium into the arena. And to stall for time.”

Maria laid out five guns on the table. Each had a ‘Stark Industries’ label but different colors. One was red and gold, another purple, the third green, fourth cobalt and silver, and the last was striped red, white, and blue. Natasha picked up the purple weapon, hesitated, and then slid it over to Bobbi. “Here’s the plan,” she began while handing the red, white, and blue gun to Bucky. “We’re climbing the rafters. We need to be directly over the arena, directly over the Avengers.” She took the cobalt and silver gun for herself, gave the red and gold one to Maria and the green one to May. “Each of you has a target. If you are 100% sure that an Avenger is about to be killed…” Nat cocked the weapon. “SHOOT him.”

Bucky eyed his gun warily. “You’re kidding.”

“This propels special Stark tech,” Maria said a bit proudly. “We call them Armor Pellets.” She gestured at the gun in Bobbi’s hands and said, “All you need to know is that if that pellet touches Clint Barton’s skin, he’ll be bulletproof in thirty seconds. These are just the prototypes. They’re the only ones we have, and you’ll only get one chance.”

“Bulletproof in thirty seconds…” Bobbi cocked an eyebrow into her bangs. “A lot can happen in thirty seconds.”

May holstered her green weapon. “It covers them in a basic Stark suit, right? For how long?”

Maria’s nose crinkled. “That’s why it’s still in the beta phase. The time…varies. The chemical and electrical process it takes to instantaneously create, construct, and solidify the armor into the shape of the intended recipient has a short half-life. It burns off fast, but it could buy some time.”

“These are in case of emergency,” Natasha clarified. “And if there are no other questions, we’re wasting time here.” She leapt down from the table and led the way to the door. “I’m coming, boys,” she whispered.

----------

Brock Rumlow scowled as the last dead lion was dragged out of the arena. Damn cat stank of singed fur. Around him, Hydra agents exchanged money and placed new bets. The spectacle of it all made Crossbones burn. Steve Rogers should’ve died three days ago. Rumlow wanted more than anything to just end it — to march across the red sand and put a bullet through Rogers’ skull. But Hydra, Strucker reminded him, was ultimately a business. A business that needed to keep its employees’ morale up. A business that needed money, money from the blood-thirsty, uber-rich assholes in the VIP box who took more pleasure in the show than the kill.

The crowd erupted into applause when Strucker announced the beginning of the second round. Rumlow clapped along as the Hammer drones march into the arena. The robots surrounded the five Avengers and crouched down like linebackers. And for a brief moment, Rumlow had to admit that the look of defeat on Steve Rogers’ face almost made the circus worth it.

---------

It took Tony several minutes to time the electrical spikes. When he figured out the pattern — and even a supposedly random algorithm still presented a pattern to Tony Stark — he reached down and pressed his fingers against Banner’s neck. “Tony?” Steve prompted. “Is he alive?”

“He’s alive.” Stark jerked back from Bruce a moment before another surge. “No clue when he’ll be conscious again, though.”

Clint limped around and crouched by Banner’s shoulder. “We should move him. Get him back under the cage.”

Thor knelt in the red sand with his hands braced against his knees and his breaths heaving. “It is doubtful that he will be safe anywhere,” he huffed as the first Hammer Drone marched into the arena. At a glare from Tony he shrugged, and conceded, “But, perhaps, slightly safer over there…”

Steve and Tony had a second to themselves while Barton and Thor moved Banner. “Are you all right?” Cap asked, eyeing the horizontal lion claw slash across Tony’s midsection.

Tony nodded at the scratches on Cap’s shoulder. “Are you?”

A thunder started to build in the arena as the audience got psyched up for the second round. Steve took a deep breath. “How do we handle Hammer tech?”

Tony shook his head. That was his only reply.

“Hey.” Steve took Tony by both shoulders and forced the other man to look at him. Someone in the stands hooted, but Steve didn’t care about what anyone else thought. He cupped Tony’s cheek and whispered, “Tell me you’re with me.”

Shallow liquid hovered in Tony’s eyes. He glanced at the passed-out Banner, the limping Hawkeye, at the blood coating Thor’s bitten leg. “We need a miracle.”

“You’re a scientist, Tony. I didn’t think you believed in miracles.”

Tony snorted. “I believe in… Rhodey. Fury. In Pepper. I believe in them. My friends are my miracles. Always have been.” Tony gestured down at his bloody clothes and sweaty skin. “Take away my tech, my money, my strength, but I’ve still got them.” Tony cleared his throat and dropped his eyes to the sand. “And you.”

Steve smiled. “Victory pizza after this? I’m buying.”

Tony grinned back. “And you’re doing the dishes, remember?”

Barton and Thor returned with weapons — the only weapons they had: the remaining iron bars from the lion cage. They piled them on the ground like campfire wood. “Don’t everybody look at once,” Hawkeye whispered, “but there’s movement in the rafters above the VIP box.”

Thor, with his usual lack of subtlety, whirled around and scanned the entire ceiling. His eyes spotted something else: the girl. She waved at him, then pressed her lips against the tips of her fingers and blew him a kiss. The air around her momentarily rippled like she was a mirage. Right then, Thor knew what the humans meant when they described the feeling of their stomachs dropping to their feet. “That’s the same girl from the train,” he gasped. “She can’t be… She’s…”

Stark followed Thor’s gaze. “Sorry, buddy.”

Thor spun towards him. “That’s Loki. LOKI!” he bellowed. “You knew Loki was alive?”

Tony took two steps backwards. “Not for sure. Tsyganov – the Red Skull, he said so. That’s where he got the Asgardian-grade poison that walloped you. We – I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

Thor hammered his chest with both fists. “Loki!” he bellowed, “come face me, you coward!” His shouts were overwhelmed by the creaks and clicks of the three robots surrounding them. The little girl giggled at the sight.

A microphone squawked. “Bets are all in!” Strucker proclaimed. “Let round two begin!”

---------

Few guards walked the halls, and even fewer guarded the entrance to the armory. Ward’s team lined up in front of the massive steel door, weapons pointed, knees bent, ready to spring. Ward gave the signal – counted down from three – and then yanked the door open. Simmons squeaked and fired two shots at the first thing that moved. Unfortunately, it was her own shadow.

“What the HELL?” Ward gasped. He lowered his gun and looked at the others to make sure that they were seeing what he was.

Sharon entered the room first. It was the size of a basketball court – an empty basketball court. She reached her fingers out for an invisible force field, for an active retroreflective panel, anything at all to explain why the armory was EMPTY. At a nod from Ward, Skye sent vibrations through it, a sonar power that bounced off of the walls and sent information back to her. “Nothing,” she reported. “There’s… there’s nothing!”
Ward slowly raised his walkie-talkie to his lips. He pressed the button twice, signaling to anyone safe on the frequency. Natasha responded right away. They all heard the shouts of the arena in the background. “Ready already?”

Ward’s mouth had gone dry. He swallowed before speaking. “Nat, the, um… The armory’s secure. But it’s not an armory.”

Static, and then, “Say again?”

“The weapons are gone. They’re ALL gone.”

Coulson this time. “Repeat that, Ward?”

Ward used the walkie-talkie to scratch his forehead – and then he smacked himself with it. “THE WEAPONS ARE MISSING!”

Silence. A full thirty seconds passed. “Abort,” came Coulson’s defeated voice. “Abort the mission.”

“Sir—” Natasha began.

“Until we know where those weapons are, it would be suicide to proceed.”

“Sir—” Ward started.

“For all we know, every grenade, blinder, shotgun, and slingshot in Warsaw could be pointed at us as we speak! We can’t lose ALL of SHIELD today! We have to regroup!”

Natasha’s voice sounded close to begging. “Bruce is down, PHIL!” A sudden scream erupted through the walkie-talkies. The ground beneath Ward’s boots quaked from the force of the arena audience’s claps and stamps. “Hill, don’t fire!” Natasha ordered. “Phil… Phil, Tony’s down. Phil, it’s bad. We have to go in. We have to go in NOW!”

---------

Thor hurled the drone’s limbs into the seats one by one like Frisbees, knocking out half a dozen men in the audience. Lifting the torso over his head, he launched the rest of the robot at the VIP box, shattering the glass and spraying shards across the entire arena. Plates of shrimp went spinning. Cushioned chairs dumped their masters. Wine bottles shattered across the floor.

Red Skull grabbed Amelia’s arm. “Stop him!” he growled. “He’s ruining everything!”

The girl, facial expression neutral, silently peeled off the Red Skull’s grip. “Hoped he would,” she said, all chipper. “Now we do this MY way.”

“Loki!” Thor shouted. “Show yourself!” The audience booed and hurled popcorn and hotdogs down at him. Three men picked up the hot dog cart roaming the seats and hurtled it into the arena.

Behind Thor, Clint and Steve clung to another droid’s arms like monkeys on tree branches. They swung their weight back and forth to maneuver it and keep the bulk of the body between them and the third bot taking potshots at Tony, who was trying to shove one of the steel rods down the back of the machine’s neck. Eventually he climbed up on the shoulders, like the robot was giving him a piggyback ride, and rammed the metal between its shoulder blades. It swerved left, then right, shrugging off Hawkeye and Cap, and then it went rigid and toppled straight back like a falling tree.

“TONY!” both Clint and Steve yelled.

Stark tried to scramble free. He missed every foothold and ended up slamming into the sand, pinned underneath the machine. Everyone in the arena flinched when they heard the back of his head hit the wall. Blood dripped down Tony’s neck and the audience cheered.

Thor ripped a plastic umbrella out of the hot dog cart and threw it like a javelin at the VIP’s. “Loki!” he bellowed. “LOKI! Come out!”

Clint reached the downed bot first. He tried to lift its shoulders but only managed to move it an inch. “Cap, I can’t—” he gasped.

“Pull him out when you can,” Cap ordered. He wrapped his arms around the bot’s neck, summoned all of his strength, and lifted. A laser beam shot past his nose. The third bot approached. “Thor!”

The drone only rose half a foot. Hawkeye slipped his hands under Stark’s arm pits and yanked. He slid him away from the wall, but Tony was still pinned from the waist down. Spent, Clint collapsed onto one knee. “Thor!” A laser shot missed him by an inch, singing the fabric off of his shoulder. “THOR!”

Thor finally heard. “Hel—” he cursed. One kick launched the overturned hotdog cart at the third robot and took out its legs. Thor stumbled forward, fell to his knees, heaved himself up again and then slammed his boot into the drone’s head until it powered down. He then staggered back to help his teammates just in time to see Cap use up the last of his energy to shove the machine off of Tony. He and Clint tented themselves over Stark’s body, gasping, panting, trembling fingers checking for signs of life.

Cap’s color was beyond beet-red. “Dammit, Thor!” he wheezed. He raised his forefinger, and took a deep breath, preparing to dive into a lecture. Abruptly, his fear cancelled out his rage, and his finger fell to his lap. “Barton,” he begged.

Clint held his ear against Tony’s lips. “Yeah… is… he’s breathe…” Barton stuttered. Someone in the stands above them threw shards of glass down on the group, and Clint collapsed over Tony, protecting his face.

Thor blocked the glass from hitting Steve. “My friends. I’m sorry—”

A tap on Thor’s shoulder. Startled, he swung his fist as he turned, and smacked the zombie-eyed Raza into the sand. Behind him stood the girl. When Thor was in mid-swing, she reached out and pressed the Mind Gem against his chest.

“NO—” Thor choked. His fingers twitched for Mjolnir half a second before he lost all control.

Steve leapt over the downed robot and rammed both boots into the girl’s stomach. She rolled head over heels twice and when she came to a stop, she’d transformed into the black-haired, emerald-robed Loki. The Trickster chuckled as he rose to his feet. More than one Hydra agent cowered at his appearance. Hammer squirmed out of the demolished VIP box and shoved people aside as he made for the exit, complaining the whole time about how his $2000 suit was ruined and how he was going to sue each and every last one of them. The Red Skull brushed the debris off of his uniform, stepped over Klaus’ prone body, and strutted out of the demolished VIP box. Strucker stumbled after him, coughing sand and glass out of his lungs. The former senator, Stern, lay against the back wall with his heart impaled by the umbrella.

One nod from Loki, and the mind-controlled Thor leapt up and grabbed Cap from behind. He forced him to his knees and held him there with one hand while he snatched up Clint by his collar and sat him down next to the captain. “No,” Barton moaned when he saw the blue in Thor’s eyes. His own eyes landed on the gem, and Loki’s snarling face. “No, not again…”

Loki flashed a smile. “Agent Barton. Did you miss me?”

Loki lunged forward. He stabbed the gem against Steve’s heart.

----------

Each rafter was only six inches apart from the other, so Natasha could lie almost comfortably flat on her stomach with her ankles wrapped around the steel for balance. She held the coil of Vibranium beneath her, squinted, and then let it fall. It bounced, unnoticed, off of Loki’s backside, and rolled across the red sand. On her left, Hill struggled to adjust her position so that she could get a clear shot at Tony with the Armor Pellet. May hung by her knees twenty feet away. At that angle, with her arm tilted, she could almost see Banner huddled underneath the lion cage. To Natasha’s right, Bobbi aimed her gun down at Clint, who she was almost directly above. Bucky remained perched on top of the VIP box. The rafters creaked too much when they held his weight.

Natasha raised her walkie-talkie to her lips. “Vibranium is in the drop zone,” she reported. “Ward. Are you in position?”

“We found the other circus animals,” he reported from the Arena basement. “And some Enhanced prisoners who haven’t had to be told twice to fight back. Coulson?”

Phil Coulson’s determined voice was so loud that Natasha lowered the walkie’s volume just to be safe. “Strike Team is ready at your command. Just say when.”

“Roger that.” Natasha hesitated, and then said, “Thanks, Coulson. I know this isn’t an easy call.”

She knew the look that Coulson had on his face. “We didn’t come all this way to back off now. Let’s finish this.”

“Ninety seconds,” Natasha said. “Starting…NOW.” She pocketed the walkie and took out her cobalt and silver gun. “Hill,” she said, cocking her chin at Maria’s weapon, “shoot Loki.”

“Why the hell are you protecting HIM?” Bucky hissed. Lava glowed down his neck as he got impatient.

Maria didn’t need to double-check that her gun was red and gold, but she did so, anyways. “Nat, the armor only fits Tony. It’s constructed to morph into his shape and no one else’s.”

“Exactly.” Natasha winked. “And Tony is about five inches shorter than Loki.”

Maria blinked. She showed every single one of her teeth when she smiled. “Tell me when.”

Nat gestured to the rest of her team. “All of you, all of us are going to shoot Loki after Hill does. Do it quick—one right after the other. Don’t miss.”

May flipped back up onto her stomach and aimed. “You’re sure this will slow him down?”

“Hell, no.” Natasha squinted through her weapon’s sight. She aimed right for Loki’s ass. “It’ll just piss him off. But how about we do it anyway?”

----------

At Loki’s command, Thor and Steve flattened Clint into the sand and each put a boot on one side of his chest. Clint cried out as his already cracked ribs stabbed into his lungs. There was no one to help him on his right—Tony lay bleeding. There was no one to help him on his left—Banner was still unconscious. And no matter how loud he called their names, Steve and Thor didn’t acknowledge him.

Clint was alone.

Loki stood above his head. He clasped his hands behind his back and smiled. “They wanted your execution formal, to be a fundraiser like school children selling magazines.” The Trickster shook his head and made tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. “When will you puny mortals learn that you can’t always get what you want?”

Clint was gathering his strength to fight back—at least one more time—when he heard a gun go off. Loki bent at the waist, arms covering his chest. Clint didn’t know what he expected to see when he looked up, but it wasn’t the Red Skull leaning over the wall with a smoking gun.

Loki roared, leapt into the stands, and tackled the Red Skull. Just then, a vertical hurricane appeared in the center of the arena. Led by Falcon and War Machine, dozens of Iron Man suits burst from the wormhole like a swarm of bees. The entire coliseum panicked and either reached for their guns or rushed towards the exits. Bodies started moving—running in every direction. Screams. Gunshots. A Hydra agent fell out of the stands and broke his neck when he landed at Clint’s boots. Wanda Maximoff stepped through and cured Cap and Thor with a blast of red light. The two Avengers collapsed. Barton rolled out from under them and together, he and Wanda dragged them to the sidelines where Stark was waking up, dazed. Wanda held her magic over them like an umbrella, shielding the Avengers from bullets.

Figures dropped from the ceiling—Romanoff, Barnes, and Hill. Natasha greeted Clint with a kiss on the lips, and then dropped a bow and arrow in his lap and handed guns to the rest of them. Bucky helped a severely stunned Steve stand up, and then backed away when the fire under his skin threatened to burn everyone in the circle. Clint spotted Rumlow charging at them and he fired a bolt straight through his heart. Crossbones disappeared under a sudden herd of circus animals. The prison doors opened and dozens of zebras, camels, and horses stampeded into the scene. A very disheveled clown followed the pack, screaming hysterically and throwing juggling balls at Hydra agents. After the circus animals came a pair of women—undoubtedly two of Strucker’s Enhanced—who lifted one of the dead Hammer drones and used it like a battering ram to open the double doors into the rest of the base.

Right then, the Hammer came home. Mjolnir busted through the ceiling like a meteorite. Thor instantly called down lightning from the new hole in roof, but instead of throwing it at a bad guy, he cast it into Banner. The surge overloaded the device in Bruce’s chest, and he woke up, gasping. A blur of blue that had to be Pietro Maximoff scooped up Banner and carried him over.

Stark had the look of a man not convinced that it wasn’t all a dream. “Bruce?”

Banner swayed on his feet. “I’m here,” he gasped. “We’re both here.” He flinched as gunfire rained down on Wanda’s shield. War Machine and Falcon dive-bombed the shooters. “What do we need the Other Guy to do?”

Natasha pointed at the ceiling. “We need an exit,” she said. “Smash!”

Hulk appeared in a blink. Boulder-teeth flashed as he grinned, and jumped.

---------

Strucker led an exodus of Hydra agents through the prison. Three tunnels branched off from the far end of the room and he sent troops down each of them. “Get the mines in the air!” he ordered first in English, and then in German. “Deploy the super-tank at my command. There has to be a Helicarrier in the area—find it!”

----------

Hill shrugged a backpack off her shoulders and started handing out what looked like pairs of interwoven seatbelts. When Stark took too long studying his harness, she ripped it out of his hands and started attaching it to his legs and torso herself. Once Tony realized what she was doing, he grabbed both of her hands and said, “Oh, hell no, I’m not leaving!”

Straight up above them, thanks to the efforts of the Hulk and the SHIELD agents in the Iron Man suits, there was a hole large enough through the arena, the base, and the elementary school for them to see the SHIELD helicopters hovering above the scene.

“Tony, our mission is to extract the Avengers!” Hill hollered over the din. “We have to get you to safety!”

“Red Skull is here!” Steve reminded them.

“And Loki!” said Thor.

Tony started to add on, but suddenly everyone’s eyes were drawn upwards. One of the helicopters exploded in a fireball that rained comets of lava across the whole city block. The others, three of which had already dropped down ropes to extract people, immediately scattered. Wanda’s shield failed under the barrage of cement and fire. Guns fired from the other side of the arena, but Falcon swooped in and blocked them with his wings.

War Machine dropped into the sand. Rhodey flipped up his visor and took Tony’s arm. “This whole base is going to collapse!” he reported. Over his coms he ordered the Iron swarm, “Grab a warm body and evac to the rendezvous point—NOW!” Before Stark could protest, Rhodes wrapped his arms around him and shot straight up into the air.

----------

“FIRE!” Strucker spat from the bridge of the super-tank. Another helicopter fell, and then a third. The fourth swerved just in time to dodge a missile. “Move forward!” Strucker shouted at the agents manning the tank’s terminals. “Find that Helicarrier!”

From a bird’s eye view, one-third of the city of Warsaw appeared to flip open like the unhinged jaw of a gigantic sea creature. A ramp ascended from the rear of the Hydra base and the enormous tank lumbered out of the ground on a thousand wheels. The massive machine was twice the size of a Helicarrier—practically a small town inside of a Vibranium hull. Hundreds of Hitler’s Landkreuzer Ratte tanks could’ve fit inside it. The remaining helicopters scattered like seagulls away from a grumpy whale.

“Herr Strucker,” one lieutenant called, “if there is a Helicarrier within a hundred miles, it must be in stealth mode.”

Strucker cursed. Both fists slammed into the armrests of his chair. “Turn the guns on the arena,” he said. “I want the entire base DESTROYED!”

“Sir! I have almost a hundred bogeys going north!” Strucker turned to the opposite side to see a sergeant pointing at a screen that showed blips on a radar. “Stark’s men. They’re flying out of the arena!”

Strucker took a closer look. Thin lips flattened into a satisfied smile. He zoomed in close and watched as someone in an Iron Man suit carried Barton into the air. The bowman shifted in the suit’s grasp so that he could send arrows down at Hydra agents. “Pick them off. Shoot them out of the sky!” Strucker ordered. “ALL OF THEM!”

---------

Red bone splintered like glass when Loki drove his boot through Johann Schmidt’s skull. “My world!” he gasped, wheezing and wiping blood away from his busted lip. He spat on the body. “My—”

Lightning burst through Loki’s shoulder. It continued into the arena seats, through the wall beyond, and the entire structure shuddered. Thor kicked Loki into a cement beam, which fell like a downed tree. “WHY?” Thor thundered. He kicked the trickster in the torso, sending him rolling across red sand. “I thought you died a good man! REDEEMED!” Loki threw a punch that Thor easily dodged. He ended up on his knees. Blood trickled down his emerald robes. “You aligned yourself with this evil? With men who would torture my friends? Why?”

The east wing of the base caved in. Men, machines, and animals disappeared under tons of bricks. A helicopter crashed into the neighborhood and one of its blades went spinning across the sand.

“Nature, brother,” Loki gasped. “I am what I am. We are fated, you and I, to be who we are, for better or worse. Now. Who are YOU going to be right now?” Loki looked past Thor, through the sunroof. “Are you going to be buried here with me? Or are you going to save your friends?”

Thor froze in the middle of swinging the hammer. He looked—and immediately regretted looking. He thought his friends were safe now that they were out of the arena, flying towards the Helicarrier like a flock of birds. But, Hydra spotted them. Thor watched, helpless, as the flock was assaulted by machine gun fire. He turned back to find Loki grinning. “This won’t be my grave!” Thor growled at his brother. And then, without a second thought, he spun Mjolnir and sailed into the sky.

---------

Weaving between air-mines was almost fun for Tony. After a minute of it he spread his arms and grinned, enjoying sunlight he thought he’d never see again and wind he thought he’d never feel. Rhodey humored him. He only complained once that Stark’s arm was in his line of sight. But then, Tony saw something black in his peripheral vision. The worst part wasn’t that a missile was coming straight at Rhodey. The worst part was that Tony, tucked tight against War Machine’s chest, saw it coming.

There was no time to shout, but he tried anyway. “RHO—”

Green in his peripheral vision. The Hulk jumped between Tony and the projectile, and the missile exploded like it hit a green wall. War Machine and ten other suits were knocked off course and sent spiraling down a good fifty yards before they recovered. The percussion knocked Tony out, and when Rhodey called his friend’s name he just heard him muttering, “Bruce… BRUCE…”

Rogers was turning in his handler’s grasp, stretching left and right looking for who had Bucky, when machine gunfire hit the suit right in the back of the head. The dead man’s arms released Steve and they were falling together, straight down towards the streets of Warsaw. Cap hoped that Bucky was ok, and then he shut his eyes.

The telltale thwapp of the hammer in his ear. Thor had him around the midsection. Neither said a word. Steve patted Thor’s arm in thanks as they soared back up to the group.

Ahead, the Helicarrier disabled its shielding and appeared, hovering, two hundred yards in the air. Twenty more suits got knocked out of the sky before they all finally landed and met the medics waiting for them. A missile hit the ship’s underbelly and the Avengers went rolling across the deck. Steve grabbed Natasha by the wrist right before she slid overboard. Thor, Cap and the Black Widow left Barton and Stark with the doctors and sprinted to the bridge where Fury and Coulson were waiting. “That is one SUPER-tank,” Fury was commenting when they arrived.

Natasha looked over Leo Fitz’s shoulder at the nearest screen. “Um, it’s hovering,” she reported, breathless. “That giant tank is—is flying.”

Below, the city-sized super-tank’s wheels turned on their sides and pounded the pavement with intense jets of air. Gradually, the tank ascended until it was as high up as the Helicarrier. The two monsters faced each other like bulls about to charge.

A high-pitched beep from the captain’s station startled them all. Coulson turned to Fury. “I have to help Dr. Foster. How long can you stall?”

Fury shrugged. “For as long as I can.” Coulson ran off and Fury motioned for Natasha, Thor, and Steve to join him in front of the video screen.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked.

“We have a plan.”

Nat shook her head. “There isn’t enough firepower on this entire vessel to take that thing out,” she decided, nodding at the tank floating outside the front window. “That hull is made of Vibranium! It—”

“Trust us, Romanoff.” Fury pressed a button and Strucker’s face appeared. Either he just put something sour in his mouth, or he was less than pleased to see three Avengers safe and sound at Fury’s side. He tore off his monocle, threw it on the deck and stamped down on it, hard. Fury’s response was an exaggerated yawn. “Can I help you?”

Color flooded the baron’s face. “You have ten seconds to give me the Avengers,” Strucker jeered. “I will ELIMINATE YOU, do you HEAR ME?”

Fury cocked his head to the side. “Sorry, I think you have the wrong number.”

Strucker cursed at them in German and broke the connection. Romanoff rolled her eyes. “Nice stall, boss,” she said, patting Fury’s shoulder.

“Foster,” Fury barked over the coms. “Coulson. Selvig. Report!”

Outside, the tank’s missile launchers moved into position.

“Five seconds!” Jane squeaked.

The tank started forward at full speed. RAMMING speed.

“Now, please,” Fury requested calmly.

Twenty rockets fired at once. They were only fifty yards from the window.

“NOW!” Coulson shouted.

Natasha, Steve, and Thor’s mouths dropped when that same vertical hurricane appeared in the sky.

The wormhole stretched wide and tall and accepted the missiles and the super-tank into its jaws.

Less than a minute later it imploded without a sound.

No fire.

No noise.

Nothingness.

The skies were clear.

Hydra was gone.

Natasha didn’t realize that she was squeezing Steve’s arm until he gently tapped her fingers. “W-what h-happened?” she stuttered.

None of them had ever seen Fury wear a grin so wide. “That,” he shouted over the sounds of the entire bridge crew clapping, “was a one-way street into the Ginnungagap.”

“The primordial void? The bottomless abyss between Earth and Asgard?” Thor gulped.

“The one and only. Foster says they’ll fall for all eternity.”

Thor shrugged. “Indeed.”

Natasha threw her arms around Steve. She reached past him for Fury, who joined in the group hug. Thor hesitated, then dropped his hammer and wrapped his arms around all three of them as they celebrated.

----------

ONE WEEK LATER

Pepper Potts tried to hide her smile behind her hand, but Tony saw it in her eyes. “Am I really THAT amusing?” he asked her.

Pepper unbuckled herself from the helicopter’s co-pilot seat and scooched back to sit on the bench. She plucked the handwritten card out of Tony’s hand and read it out loud. “Dear Miss Carter, thank you for saving my ass. I hope you’ll accept this fruit bouquet and two tickets to the opera. I’ll make sure that Steve is free that night. Sincerely, T.” Pepper blinked at her boyfriend. “T?”

“I’m saving my strength.” Tony knocked a knuckle against the cast encasing his right hand. “Who knew writing thank-you cards would be so exhausting?”

“Are you sending opera tickets to everyone who was there that day?”

Tony’s eyebrows danced. “Don’t be ridiculous. I gave the Twins a house, I got Wilson season tickets to the Knicks, and Jane wants a new electron microscope. I’m making a donation to charity on Ward’s behalf.”

“Don’t forget Mack’s family.”

Tony nodded. “I’m meeting them in person next week…”

“What about me?” Pepper flipped her hair behind her shoulder, careful to make the scent of it hit Tony’s nostrils. “You’d still be underground if I hadn’t got that tech to SHIELD. What’s my prize?”

Tony took his time capping his pen and placing the thank-you cards in a box. He leaned in slowly, and without blinking. “Miss Potts,” he said against her earlobe, “as soon as we get into our bedroom, every inch of me is going to show every inch of you just how grateful I am.”

Pepper sighed when he graced his lips across her neck. “You might be too full for that,” she said.

Tony sat back. “Full? Of what? Romance? Passion? Sex appeal? No such thing, baby.”

“Pizza.” Pepper pointed out the window. Tony stretched passed her and saw the banner stretched across all of Avengers Tower right before the helicopter sat down on the landing pad: WELCOME HOME, TONY!

“Surprise!” Pepper purred.

“Oh.” Tony couldn’t hide all of his disappointment. He lifted the box of envelopes into his lap and shrugged. “Guess I’ll deliver all of these in person!”

Pepper took his hand. “Relax. It’s just a few people. Steve, Bruce, Fury, Natasha, Clint, Thor, Rhodey, Phil, and Sam. Oh, and Bucky, too. Steve said something about victory pizza…?”

Tony grinned. “Love you.” He kissed her and said, “Love you,” again. “And you, pal!” he yelled, patting Hogan on the shoulder.

“I better get pizza,” Happy said from the pilot’s seat. “And if you’re taking requests, I’d love to meet Jennifer Aniston.”

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When the celebration wound down, it was just Tony, Steve, Clint, and Bruce lounging on the couches. “And the Hulk just swats it away,” Tony explained, pantomiming Hulk smacking the missile out of the sky like it was a housefly. “Damndest thing I ever saw.”

“No, no, the best part was when Barton and Steve skewered that lion,” Bruce argued.

Clint shook his head. “Did you guys not see the circus clown? He was the real hero.”

Steve put his drink down and yawned. “I’m off to bed.” He patted each man on the shoulder as he passed. “Glad you’re all right,” he said. “Glad you’re home,” he told Tony.

“Wait, wait,” Tony called to him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” He pointed at the bowls and plates piled up on the bar.

Steve rolled his eyes, but didn’t stop smiling. “I’ll do the dishes in the morning.”

The End