The limo pulled to a stop in front of the hospital's main entrance, and let Coulson's team out. Normally, a fancy limo like the one Stark had sent for them he would have his youngest team members bouncing like crazy but they were all quiet, Fitzsimmons with Triplett hovering protectively over them and Skye, silent and closed off.

"Surgical waiting room. That's where they said they were when I called." Coulson said, but he didn't make a move towards the door.

"Six to eight hours. They should know something by now." May said.

"It's a good hospital." Jemma offered. "I looked it up online. They deal with very high levels of trauma here. With Shield facilities out, Agent Hand's best chance is to be in a place like this."

"And it sounded like they got her here fast. That's good, right?" Skye said.

Fast, but who knows how long it had been from the shooting until Victoria was found? If she had lost 60 percent of her blood by the time they got her here, he was afraid it had been awhile, or that her injuries were so massive that the chances of a repair being successful… Three gunshots, two that hit the lung. Skye had only been shot twice, to the abdomen, not the chest, and she would have died without the GH-325. As much as Coulson wanted to believe there was hope, he just couldn't let himself feel it. And if Victoria died…. Letting Ward get on that plane with Garrett, even if he had no clue he was anything other than what he appeared to be, a loyal Shield agent, it was a recipe for disaster from the start and now thanks to his mistake two people were dead and Victoria….

"Hey!" A voice called, snapping him out of his dark thoughts. He looked up and Darcy was hurrying out of the hospital towards them. "Finally! Stark sent me to wait for you. Darcy Lewis, intern and victim of Ipod theft." She said to the others as an introduction. "Have any of you seen him with an Ipod, because I tried calling Shield after he pulled that whole faking his death thing and they didn't have a clue where it was. Everyone's up in the surgical waiting room. You'll need me to show you were to go. Thor's niece has spells set up to keep people from noticing us and everything, so you wouldn't be able to find anyone on your own."

"Victoria's still in surgery?" May asked as they followed the young woman into the hospital and crowded into one of the elevators for the trip upstairs.

"They had to call in some sort of specialist a couple of hours in. That kind of delayed things. But Doctor Banner can explain it better than I can. You know, for someone with a giant green rage monster sharing their head, he's really calm. I mean, he just got married, they barely had a chance to kiss and now he's spending his wedding night in a hospital waiting room instead of in a hotel or at least back at Stark's place, and he hasn't blown up once."

When they stepped into the waiting room, they didn't see anything besides other families, sitting slumped in chairs, exhausted and frightened, waiting for news. But then Tony Stark appeared out of nowhere and grabbed hold of Phil.

"There you are!" Tony said as he drug the group under the shelter of Hela's illusion and silencing spells. "Pepper, look who's here, and not dead!"

"Phil!" Pepper jumped up and hugged him hard before shooting Tony a look. "Tony, behave. He's had a bad enough day without your making it worse by being yourself. Did you get your people somewhere safe? I've alerted legal about the situation and they're happy to help. They're happy to help with any situation that doesn't involve Tony and possible explosions. I think someone was singing the Hallelujah Chorus when I told them they were going to get to handle something that didn't involve Tony for a change."

"They're safe." Phil said. And he couldn't find the words to thank them for what they had done, finding Victoria, getting her help, sending help to the Fridge, helping get the other agents to safety.

"You're able to watch the surgery?" Jemma said as she caught sight of the images flickering in the air. "How are you doing that?"

"I have a spell for observation." Hela said as she looked up. "Actually Lord Volstagg's daughter Hildy deserves the credit for finding it. "I'm afraid that the images aren't the best, and we lost sound due to the distance."

"No sound, that's fine." Jemma murmured as their team clustered around, trying to see what was going on. Having to watch someone they knew fighting for her life on an operating table was bad enough without having to hear it too. "They had to call in another doctor?"

"They hit a bleeder they had a hard time stopping in her abdomen. I'm thinking that the liver was probably damaged." Bruce said.

"They tried clamping off the hepatoduodenal ligament?" Jemma asked as she studied the flickering images. It was hard to see, but Agent Hand's blood pressure still looked much too low in spite of the blood that was still being rapidly infused. Not good.

"It slowed the bleeding, but didn't stop it. That's when they called in the fourth doctor. It looks like they're going for a resection."

"Okay, I don't speak doctor, but that doesn't sound good to me." Skye said. "Resection? Is that some fancy way to fix the liver, or is it taking the liver out? And I'm hoping it isn't taking the liver out, because don't you really, really need your liver?"

"It's taking the damaged part out, to hopefully stop the bleeding. If it works, the rest should be able to regenerate, given time." Bruce said. "She has good doctors working on her, and they've been able to keep her heart and blood pressure stable after they ran into some trouble. She's got a chance."

Liver damaged, lung damaged. How much of a chance could Victoria have with that degree of trauma? And if she did survive, what sort of condition would she be left in after such severe injuries? Why hadn't he suspected Ward? He should have suspected Ward when he found out about Garrett. This should not have happened. Maybe what Fury was worried about was right, maybe he was losing his mind. Before New York, he would have never screwed things up this badly, and now because of him, people were dead, Victoria might be dying. Turn over the team to May. He should do that before he got anyone else hurt.

"Excuse me, Agent Coulson?" Hela asked as she slowly approached him. She had been a bit nervous about speaking to him after what her father had done, but she felt she had to let him know what she was seeing. "But could I ask why you have a compulsion spell on you?"