The woods were riddled with soldiers. Steve watched them from the accommodating anonymity of a tall beech. Their uniforms were grey and generic. Not Hydra then. In fact, they moved like ordinary foot soldiers, and muttered to each other in irritable Russian. It seemed that the search for intruders' bodies was something of an inconvenience. Too bad for them that Steve intended to be a far greater nuisance. He waited for his moment before he took care of them. Strictly non-lethal. But he did pick up a semi-automatic rifle, just in case the choice was taken out of his hands, and continued to make his way up the incline to the crater's edge. He lay flat on his stomach to climb right to brink, the ground falling away in a sheer cliff face. He reached back to his belt and took out a tiny scope.

The roof of the base was open, bearing the internal hangar to the skies. He could even make out a flurry of activity in the form of busy specks. He couldn't see any sign of the weapon though. Evidently they kept it hidden away when they weren't firing it. So they considered its hardware at least potentially vulnerable. That was sort of reassuring. Less so was the swarm of choppers in the air. They were sweeping back and forth over the land, a formidable thirteen of them, scouring the terrain below for signs not only of their downed enemies but, Steve guessed, any other trespassers that might be lurking out here. He turned his scope to the vast slick of earth and torn up trees that had poured down the right-hand side of the valley. Tony was in there somewhere. He had to be. God only knew where Bruce was. He backed down from the precipice, slinking back into the cover.

Tony woke by degrees. With his eyes closed, the world seemed to be made of earth and helicopters. He was lying at an angle, his feet above his head. Either that or someone was playing havoc with gravity. Heavy things were pressing down on his face and chest. The air was thick and when he tried to take a deeper inhale, he was rewarded with a mouthful of soil. He bolted upright, choking, and pains ignited like magnesium in several regions at once. The most notable was his right shoulder, which screamed out at him as though assailed by a barrage of red hot needles, sending waves of watery weakness like shock down his arm. He fell onto his left side, coughing and retching, unable to address things with the yelling they deserved until he wasn't suffocating anymore. But it never came to fruition, because then he seized up entirely. He lay there contracted, his chest paralysed, pulling short, shallow breaths in with tears of strain building in his eyes.

Behind him lay the chunks of wood that had been lying on top of him. The one that had been over his face, along with his apparently detached faceplate, had formed a meagre pocket connecting him with the air on the surface, keeping him alive while he'd slept. Even in this state, Tony could feel the bloody graze it had left on his cheek and nose, oozing hotly. The piece on his chest he'd been mostly protected from by his armour, but there were stabbing pains coming through the right side of his ribcage which told him that at least two ribs had been broken. He didn't have to look to know that his armour had been shattered. He could feel it lying in fragments all around him, hanging onto him in pieces. He hadn't known that could happen without him dying in the process. Good to know, for future reference. And he definitely was alive, because no dead person could ever hurt this much.

It was five minutes later that he lifted a tremulous hand to his excruciating shoulder. His fingertips travelled over to the back and found a hard lump. Displaced bone. He groaned miserably. His mind flitted to a desert where he'd lain on his back amongst the dirt and rubble kicked over him by a blast. He remembered the warm sensation spreading across his chest as his heart had pumped blood out into the world. His limbs had gone cool and numb with the sharp drop in blood pressure. Here, there was no numbness, and the cold was coming from outside himself. He was lying still, and the chill had infiltrated him right down to his aching bones. He knew he had to move. His systems were down and there was no one else here to help him.

His legs were stubborn and unco-operative, but he persuaded them to fold, drawing them closer to his body, then began the slow work of re-orienting himself in the mud. It was difficult without any aid from his arms, but he got himself turned around so that his feet were further down the incline than his head. As he did, he got a good view down the massive landslide, all the way down to the valley floor, miles below. The base was crouched like a spider with all its legs tucked in. And it was no doubt just his imagination, but all eight of its eyes seemed to be on him. Helicopters criss-crossed overhead and he felt sure that they could see him, although he realised he was just a tiny speck to them. He was their needle in a haystack. He rolled onto his stomach, moaning quietly, and levered himself up on his left elbow. He gave himself a moment to let the pain subside a little, his breathing harsh. Then he shuffled his arm out in front and began to push forward and up.

He soon became completely wrapped up in what he was doing, letting everything else fall into the background. But it wasn't long after that a helicopter carved itself into his awareness by soaring low over him and his concentration was ripped to shreds by the ear-splitting gunfire that tore along the slope, stitching a great line along the landslide mere feet above him. He ducked his head, being showered in lumps of cold earth and sodden wood. Another line rattled by below and the land collapsed, dragging him with it. He cried out as the downward slide jostled his shoulder. His still-useful left hand raked through the soil, trying to stop his descent, driving his boots into the rolling ground with limited success. After a few moments, it came to a natural stop on its own. But the helicopter was coming back for another round, and punctuated the unstable hillside with heavy fire. He lay there, covering his face with his good arm. There was no getting away from it: he was toast. And as if to prove his point, a wave of debris came tumbling down from above. A slender but dense, saturated tree truck slammed into Tony's dislocated shoulder and he was consumed by a devastating pain chased by insensible darkness.

Steve practically threw himself down the landslide. It flowed and gave way under and around him as he hurtled down it, and he had to constantly rake his gloved fingers through the soft dirt to maintain a smooth balance because, all the time, his eyes were busy scanning for life, and his ears were trained on the sounds coming from the ridge behind him. The soldiers would be at the edge any minute, and it would take them no time at all to spot him if he was still standing this tall. But he was in luck. He saw something away on the right, and took off at an awkward diagonal path towards it. "Are you still there?" he asked.

"We're here," Jane assured.

"Have you found them?" asked Pepper.

"I've got Tony."

"Oh thank god," she breathed, "is he okay?"

"Hold on." He surfed right down next to the body of Tony Stark, lying prone and wearing fragments of an almost completely demolished suit. Steve had seen this suit take machine gun fire, missiles to the chest, even a hit from the Hulk without much worse that a small dent to show for it. The implications for the force involved here were shocking. The arc reactor was damaged, and shone dimly. Good thing Tony no longer relied on it to keep his heart ticking but it might not matter. He was perfectly still and pallid under the grime. Getting down low on his knees, Steve whipped his gloves off and pressed two fingers to Tony's neck while lifting one eyelid open with his thumb. At the same time he watched Tony's pupil contract against the light, he felt the comforting flutter of a strong, if a little fast, pulse under his fingertips. He licked the back of his hand and held it close to Tony's nose and mouth, feeling the coolness of his breath pass over his skin. "He's alive and breathing," he sighed, his relief physical. "Pulse is good." His earpiece became a little active with heavy exhalations of released tension and distant mumbling as Pepper alternated between thanking her lucky stars and cursing Tony for scaring the life out of her. Steve was already feeling Tony's skull for head injuries, slipping his hands under what remained of the cracked helmet. Incredibly, all he found were minor bumps and grazes. The wind carried notes of Russian voices to him. He was almost out of time.

He pushed one hand down the back of Tony's neck. He was no doctor. Not by a long shot. But he knew enough to check for displaced vertebrae before he even thought about moving him. The back of Tony's neck was smooth, so he retracted his hand and gripped the suit's backplate. He grit his teeth and tore the metal apart like he was de-shelling a tortoise in order to continue his investigation. Luckily, Tony's back showed no signs of damage, although Steve was painfully aware that these things could hide. Far more obvious though, was that dislocated shoulder. He did a rapid check down his ribs and found three broken. Limbs were remarkably intact. He went back to that right shoulder. Better to do this while Tony was unconscious anyway. He turned Tony onto his side, pulled his arm forward, and when he found the right position, he slammed it home into its socket. Tony jerked with a strangled noise of horrified agony before going completely limp again.

"What was that?" Pepper demanded to know in alarm as Steve pulled Tony's partially metal-encased form over his shoulder.

"Nothing. We're on the move," he told them, starting the arduous run back up the slope. It was steep and constantly falling away under his boots like sand but the sight and sound of a chopper circling back round from the other side of the valley was enough to make him almost as fast on the way up as he had been on the way down. They held their fire though, because their soldiers had reached the top of the landslide and were beginning a systematic search with what looked like ground-penetrating radar. He gave them a wide berth, staying low behind a swelling of earth. When he had very nearly reached the top, he heard voices calling and peered over to see soldiers swarming round one particular spot. They dropped to their knees and began to dig with their hands under the massive trunk of an uprooted oak. Steve shifted Tony minutely so that he could get down on his stomach and watch through a tangle of obscuring branches.

Between the lot of them, they quickly dug a hollow and one of them jumped down into it. With a concerted effort, they excavated the area either side of the tree and almost a minute after they had come together, they reached down and hauled a filthy and apparently lifeless body from the earth. Steve wasn't breathing. The soldiers stood around as a couple of their number knelt over Bruce and examined him. When they nodded to their colleagues and moved to pick him up, Steve finally let his chest relax. "They've found Bruce," he whispered, forgetting in the heat of the moment, as he always did, to call him the more respectful 'Dr Banner'. "He's alive." Looks like they're going to take him back to the base," he added, getting up and resuming his ascent at a sprint. "I'm going with him."

"You're what?" asked Jane.

"They're out here looking for two intruders," he told them. "And that's what they're going to find. I'm going to give Tony my earpiece and leave him somewhere quiet, then I'm going back to the landslide and letting them find me."

"Captain…" started Pepper, sounding unsure.

Steve pulled himself and Tony up onto the ridge and ran into the woods. "It's our only play, Miss Potts. I have to stay with Dr Banner and I need to infiltrate that base to look for Thor. What's the word on my back up?"

"They're coming," Pepper confirmed, "but it's going to be a while…"

"That's okay. Just make sure they understand the situation here." He jumped a ditch and turned back. He planted a foot either side of the narrow channel, almost completely concealed by thick brush, and lowered Tony down into it. He took off the rifle he had slung over one shoulder and tucked it carefully under Tony's arm. "Okay. I'm gonna leave you now," he informed the women.

"Good luck," said Jane quietly.

He smiled. "Thanks. Pepper?"

"Yes?"

"Yell at Tony."

"No problem," she answered wryly.

He unhooked his earpiece, leaned down and fixed it onto Tony's ear. Then he set off back the way he'd come. By the time he was sliding back down the slope again, the soldiers had removed Bruce and were continuing their search. He went down to a point about halfway between where he'd found Tony and where they'd pulled Bruce out, and made his way slowly and stealthily into their path. He was so exposed here. It was like being in No Man's Land, where every second was lived on borrowed time. Unwilling to push his luck any further, he got down on his stomach and crawled through the dirt. He all but swam in it, tossing fistfuls over himself and rubbing it into his face before 'collapsing' with his face resting on one arm. He used the time it took them to reach him to slow his breathing right down to the bare minimum, and merge all sensory information in one big indistinct ball, letting it roll away from him where it couldn't touch him, leaving him quiet, still and empty. When Russian voices spoke over him, and hands roughly hauled him onto his back, he didn't so much as flicker. He let them drag him by his wrists all the way up the slope and through the forest. After what seemed like an interminable length of time, he was loaded into a chopper and they took to the air.

Tony woke with a cry, bolting upright and grabbing his right arm, which was how he discovered that he was no longer lying under the open sky. He was sitting in a ditch in the forest undergrowth with a semi-automatic rifle in his lap and Pepper yelling his ear. "…you hear me? Tony? You talk to me right now!"

"Y-Yes!" he tried to interrupt, attempting to get his bearings at the same time. "Yes, I can hear you! What's with the shouting?" He frowned around at his new environment. "Did I just teleport?"

"Can you walk? Are you alright? You have to move, Tony."

He gripped his arm tighter, groaning. "Ugh, god… Look, honey, I think I skipped a chapter here…"

"Tony, you have to get out of there. Get to the cabin."

It didn't seem like a good time to debate that. He threw the rifle out of the ditch and stiffly heaved himself out after it, staggering to his feet. He picked up the crude piece of weaponry and began a poorly co-ordinated stumble through the trees. "Can I have the Sit. Rep. now?" He caught himself. 'Sit. Rep.'? Who was he turning into? He struggled to get through a patch of brittle bushes, cursing his one remaining Iron Man foot. It was really throwing off his balance.

"Steve got you out," Jane explained succinctly. "But they've got Bruce and he's going after them."

Tony's blood pressure dropped suddenly. "They've got Bruce?"

"Yes, but Steve's on it," Pepper reiterated in a meaningful tone.

"How long ago?"

"About half an hour. Listen, the only thing you need to do right now is get to safety," she urged.

"You guys do know that the cabin is about thirty miles away," he reminded. "It's gonna take me forever to get there. Rate I'm going, I'll make it at about the same time the next Ice Age starts. Not that any of us will notice a difference..."

"I'm going to guide you to somewhere I can come get you in the car," said Jane.

"Great. So I can bail with more efficiency," he griped, wincing with every step that jarred his aching body.

"You're not in any position to do anything out there," said Pepper firmly. "You get back to where you can be useful."

"Fine," he grumbled, holding onto a tree while he extricated himself from a thorny tangle that had attached itself securely to his legs. Once free, he let his hand go round to his injured shoulder, tentatively probing around for that nasty lump. However, he seemed to have misplaced it. Or rather, replaced it. "Huh," he uttered. "He put my shoulder back in."

Pepper balked through the earpiece. "What?!"

When Steve got home, he was going to learn Russian. He knew French, German, Italian and a little Japanese but anything else was no more than bits and pieces. None of the Russian words he knew were being used here. Once the chopper had landed in the hangar, a man with a brisk, purposeful gait had marched over, hopped on board and subjected him to similar checks to the ones he himself had conducted on Tony a short while ago. The difference was that this man did it with the aid of a stethoscope and a small torch, muttering in astonished Russian the entire time. During the pupil reactivity test, he was given a glimpse of the doctor's hard face. Even without focusing his vision, it was just long enough for him to take in the abundance of frown lines between the man's brows and at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. Having passed these preliminary tests, he'd been transferred onto what felt disconcertingly like a metal table on wheels and carted off amidst a whole entourage of men.

The real trick to playing possum was timing. There was going to be a sweet spot. A perfect moment in which to make his escape. Sometime between now and when they finally decided to restrain him. The fact that they hadn't tied him down already told him that these people were playing out of their league. They obviously didn't know anything about him beyond what they had heard in rumours. If they'd understood the first thing about his physiology, they would've realised (even if they continued to believe he really was unconscious) that he could wake at any moment. They hadn't even disarmed him; he was still lying on his shield. Amateurs. And these people were toying with a technology that no one on Earth was qualified to understand. He had to refrain from shuddering.

They took him into a lift, going down about four floors he guessed, and then along corridors. He memorised them as they progressed. They made a turn and went through a set of double doors into a wider, shorter space. Definitely a room. Even with his eyes shut and no discernible sounds, he knew it was some kind of medical room. Perhaps it was a scent he was perceiving below a conscious level. He could feel the moment closing in. He could just do with some of these people gathering round, maybe when the doctor instructed them to help remove his armour. Lured into a false sense of security… Maybe when they touched him, like… now.

He exploded from the table, booting one man in the face and smashing his elbow and forearm into two others when he drew his arm back for a punch that laid the doctor out cold. Before anyone had even hit the floor, he'd snatched his trusty shield from his back and swept it along the line of soldiers on his left, like a kid running a stick across the bars of an iron fence. Only iron bars didn't usually pitch over backwards with a collection of fractured cheekbones between them. He leapt over them as they fell to rush the others before they could decide whether to fight or run. Pounding his shield into their chests, he knocked them back into each other like he was playing pool, pocketing them two at a time. Firing at him was a mistake. The bullets ricocheted off the vibranium disc and he tilted it downward, aiming their chaotic returns at leg level. No one wanted a knee-capping, and a severed femoral artery was certainly nothing to be sniffed at, but the risk was still better than taking one to the chest or face. The human blockades dropped, screaming and wailing, and the firing stopped. The only man left uninjured lowered his rifle, staring at him with eyes like coins, then took off for the door. Steve threw his shield at the back of his head and it struck home with a hollow clang followed by the thump of a heavy body hitting floor. He caught his shield, took a quick appraising glance at his work and, satisfied that they wouldn't cause him any trouble for a while, waded through them to push the door open and leave.

The corridors were grey, long and dimly lit by half-hearted fluorescent tubing. Noises were dulled by the thick walls, giving the place a claustrophobic atmosphere. He could practically smell all the earth that was piled on top of them. That's when he remembered that he was covered in the stuff, and leaving tracks on the floor; although, thankfully, it was already filthy from the passage of dozens of soldiers' boots. He jogged silently, sidling up to doors and stealing glimpses through their windows. Most looked in on analysts in white coats, beavering away at computers, oblivious to his presence. But just when he'd picked up the pace to affording each room only a fleeting glance, one stopped him in his tracks. The room was dark, lit only by the paltry glow of the corridor that oozed through the glass pane in the door. But Steve had no problem making out the figure on the table.

They'd stripped Thor of his armour. He lay there inert on the cold metal in just his trousers, his eyes closed and his blond hair dishevelled. His chest rose and fell slowly to the rhythm of a deep sleep. He looked very much like he'd been forgotten about. Like they'd poked and prodded him when he'd first come in, and when he'd apparently offered them nothing of interest, he'd been shut away here like an old toy until enough time elapsed that the decision to throw him away would be approved. Steve felt a hard stab of anger in his gut, accentuating his gnawing concern. He grasped the handle, which jarred when he tried to turn it. The keypad on the left of the doorframe offered no clues. And without Shield's handy little gadgets, he was going to have to do this the old fashioned way. He took a step back and kicked. The door flew off its hinges and cracked down on the floor like a double gunshot. Or a starter pistol, since Steve had effectively just rung the alarm. People were going to be all over this place in seconds. In spite of the noise, Thor hadn't even twitched in his slumber. Steve bounded in, grabbed Thor's closest arm and pulled him up onto his own right shoulder. Thor was a good deal heavier than Tony. He jostled him into a reasonably secure hold, wrapping one arm around the Asgardian's legs, and ran out of the room with him like a cartoon villain kidnapping a big blond princess.

His cover was officially blown. When he looked through the doors now, he was met with startled faces waiting anxiously for guards to come protect them. But he paid them no attention, moving on from one to the next until he found a pair of double doors like the ones he'd been taken through. And on the other side was a mixed group of medics and armed men crowded round another wheeled table. All he could see was a pair of dirt-choked bare feet, and that was all he needed. The same second he took in this scene was the same second that the soldiers opened fire, so he ducked, pulled his shield round in front of himself and Thor, and invaded. He tilted his shield upward this time so that dust rained down from the bullets striking the ceiling. He couldn't risk hitting Bruce. It wasn't an issue for long, and these guys clearly weren't prepared for hand-to-hand combat, although a couple of them did themselves proud and tried. The medics made a break for it and he let them go. Everyone knew he was here anyway.

Unless you counted the mud, Bruce was wearing even less than Thor. But he was moving, and that made him the winner. His eyes were barely open, directed at Steve with a worried frown. One arm was loosely raised as though to protect himself, although it clearly hadn't worked since someone had inserted a needle in it, with a tube that was steadily drawing blood into a machine. "Captain?" he enquired, his voice rough and gravelly.

"Dr Banner," he said, reaching out to gently grasp that arm. "Are you alright?"

Bruce didn't seem sure, and faltered. "Uh… Yeah." He broke into a harsh coughing fit and Steve could hear two lungs full of grit working hard to get clear. He turned and put Thor down, leaning him against the wall where he slumped like an over-sized doll. Bruce was still coughing when Steve carefully pulled the needle from his arm and opened the machine to get at the bag gradually filling up with Bruce's blood. There was nowhere to safely dispose of it in here. He couldn't afford to leave them anything to work with. He pulled out the tube, plugged the blood bag with a stopper and tucked it into his belt. "You found Thor," Bruce noticed, trying to sit up with limited success.

"Yeah. But I attracted a little attention doing it so we're gonna have to get out of here fast. Can you walk?"

"Sure. Sounds like fun," he commented, and tensed to at least move his legs off the table.

"Hang on," Steve stopped him. "Let me just pants this soldier."

Bruce lay back down, chuckling.

"Stay behind me!" yelled Steve. He tried to blink the blood out of his right eye, shaking his head to send droplets flying. He shifted Thor on his shoulder again, attempting to keep him safe behind what seemed in situations like this to be a very small shield. Bruce was more than smart enough to do as he was told. The fact that the doctor was wearing an enemy uniform had been enough to garner a few seconds' hesitation from the opposition during the campaign to reach the hangar but they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. Steve kept his mind on the prize, skirting methodically sideways towards the nearest chopper, returning fire with lethal accuracy. Bruce was covering the way they'd come, inching backwards on weak, anaemic legs. He panted with the effort, sweating trickling down his face. He couldn't go much further, Steve could see that, but that was okay because they'd made it. "Bruce!" he called, prompting the radiation expert to turn round and see that he was standing with his back to a patiently waiting military helicopter. He grabbed the handle and with a terrible effort, heaved the sliding door open. He practically crawled inside, collapsing on the floor.

Steve stepped up into it backwards and wrenched the door shut, a symphony of bullets singing against the other side. He dropped Thor, his shield and his weapon unceremoniously on the floor next to Bruce and dove into the cockpit, jumping into the pilot's chair and waking the sleeping beast up. He hadn't flown this model before but he knew his way around enough aircraft to get her started without any trouble. The whole vehicle was clattering under the constant storm of abuse from outside and Steve's thoughts were on the fuel tank as the blades began to pick up speed. He twisted in his seat, trying to see back into the main compartment as they established the first stirrings of lift. "Are you injured?!" he checked, shouting to stand a chance of being heard. Bruce was slumped against one wall, and shook his head, too exhausted to speak. "Check Thor!" Steve ordered, returning his attention to piloting. They began to rise in the hangar, leaving the enemy below. The beleaguered Russians had begun closing the hangar roof almost as soon as the Avengers had breached the area but it was too slow, and a gentle sideways manoeuvre was all it took to ascend through the narrowing gap. Steve found himself thinking 'Close the blast doors! Close the blast doors!... Open the blast doors! Open the blast doors!' In spite of their on-going predicament, he grinned.

"Thor's okay!" Bruce called. His voice was scarcely loud enough to be audible, even though it was a little quieter now without the gunfire. "He's got a minor bullet graze to the leg but it's shallow!"

Steve nodded, relieved, although Bruce probably couldn't see him do it. Remembering, he pulled his cowl off and ran a hand up through his drenched hair. His own graze was already closing up. Head wounds always did have a tendency to overreact. He gripped the yoke with both hands again, one now red and sticky. With the safe house and Tony to the West, he banked East. Yes, he was making more work for himself but it was absolutely essential that the safe house remained secure. The fuel gauge looked good. He could make a wide circle and contact the others from somewhere safe. There was just one more thing that could stop them. He began evasive manoeuvres, weaving left and right.

"Steve!" Bruce hollered, gripping onto the netting on the walls for dear life while Thor lolled back and forth across the floor. "What's going on?! Have we been hit?!"

"Not yet," he yelled back. "And I need you to grab hold of Thor and get ready to be really, really mad."

"What?! Even if I could, we're on a helicopter! Not the time or the place!"

"Would a freefall be the time or the place?"

"Oh my god…" He gripped the netting even tighter, closing his eyes.

"Just be ready, it should happen any second n-"

The boom washed through the forest, dislodging snow and throwing Tony to his hands and knees in the brush. The remaining shell of his helmet safe-guarded his ears somewhat but it still reduced Pepper's voice to a distant mumble. He blinked hard, the afterglow screening his vision. He twisted at his own cost, to look back in the direction of the base. He hadn't really expected to see anything from here, but he was disturbed to have his cotton wool world penetrated by the distant yet mounting scream of metal falling through the air.