When the alarm clock buzzed at six in the morning, Bruce slammed a hand on it to shut the annoying sound off. In fact he was almost grateful for it. He'd had a long sleepless night, and he was relieved that it was finally morning.

The previous night, he had waited nervously, along with Tony and Thor for Steve and Natasha's return. The two had finally come back after an hour, bearing a flash drive with the original flight data.

Tony had used his laptop to calculate the quinjet's flight path, and had been damn near insufferable when his predictions regarding tampering had turned out to be right. While Tony had engaged in a war of words with Steve, Bruce had compared the new information with the old, and pointed out the only difference were a couple of transposed numbers.

Steve felt vindicated in trusting Haseleu and his team, saying it was a mistake anyone could make. Tony had tried to insist that it was just the kind of thing a spy would do, make a deliberate miscalculation look like an innocent error.

As the two continued to go at it, Bruce and Natasha took the new information to calculate a new search area. As Bruce has suspected, the new area was over 100 miles to the west from the area where they had been looking.

It was mostly on an ice sheet, that would probably disappear in the summer. Bruce shook his head slowly. "Storm would have been worse out there."

Tasha glanced over at him, an emotionless mask firmly in place. She had been looking at satellite images of the area. She continued her search for a few moments, then cocked her head. "Can you hand me the magnifier, please?"

"Sure. What have you got?" Bruce asked curiously.

Tasha was shaking her head, frowning. She stepped aside, and gestured to the map. "Does this look like a town to you?"

Bruce lifted his glasses to his forehead, and using the magnifier, squinted where Tasha pointed. The angle was bad with what looked like a cliff cutting off the view. There was a clear demarcation of the shoreline, and between it and the shadowing cliff was... something. "It's hard to say. Could be a settlement, or maybe a summer fishing camp. Is this the best angle we've got?"

"It's the only angle. We'd have to have a satellite moved to get anything better, and that would alert SHIELD."

The room suddenly got quiet as every head turned to Natasha. Bruce cocked his head. "And that would be a bad thing?"

Tasha sighed, "I'm sorry, Steve, but I agree with Stark. That error was deliberate. At this point, I don't know if this was something that Fury planned or if one of Haseleu's team is a mole. Until I know why we were sent on this wild goose chase, I can't trust anyone."

The rest of the evening had degenerated into a series of squabbles between various members of the team. Bruce had left early, hiding in his room, working on keeping himself calm. The last thing they needed was for the Hulk to put in an appearance.

Bruce padded to the kitchen. He wasn't particularly surprised to find Tony already there, sitting at the table, sipping coffee. Bruce poured himself a cup and joined his friend. "So, anybody die last night?"

Tony flashed a tight little smirk. "If looks could have killed, I wouldn't be sitting here today."

Snorting a laugh, Bruce replied, "If looks could kill, I doubt any of us would have survived our first team dinner with Clint and Tasha. They both have that death glare thing going for them. So. What's on the agenda for today?"

"We're going to wait until Haseleu and his merry band have left, then we're going to go out and find him."

"Do you think Haseleu will give us trouble for staying behind?"

"Actually, Romanoff has that covered. She's going to tell them we're going to wait for the repairs on our jet."

Bruce nodded. "Okay, that sounds good. How are we going to get out to the search area?"

"Harris has promised to have the jet repaired by ten. We're not going to mention that to Haseleu. He might decide to wait for us. But if it all goes to plan, we'll be out on the ice by noon."

"And Rogers is on board with this?"

"Yes, he is." Steve said as he entered the room. "I'm still not convinced this was anything other than an honest mistake, but I'm willing to go along with the consensus. The important thing is we recover the remains."

Tony stiffened beside Bruce, and in fact, Bruce wasn't happy with Rogers identification of Clint Barton as some generic 'remains.' But before either he or Tony could object, Thor strode in, shaking his head. "Friend Steve, you do our comrade wrong. He has a name. Referring to him as 'remains' strips him of his name, his honor. He is Hawkeye. If you do not call him Clint Barton, at least call him Hawkeye."

Bruce nodded thoughtfully. He'd been thinking of Barton as Clint. But really, that seemed somehow to diminish the man. Hawkeye was a powerful fighter, not someone to be trifled with. Bruce determined not to make that mistake again. They were going out to the ice fields to recover the body of Hawkeye.

Bruce could see the same realization on Steve and Tony's faces. Tony held up his cup in tribute to the tall Norse god. "An important tip. Thank you, Egon."

Bruce rolled his eyes, being the only one in the room who got Stark's reference. "Well, we're going to need a good breakfast if we're going to be out all day. Do we want eggs or pancakes?"

Steve moved toward the kitchen. "I'll tell you what, I'll work on breakfast. Tony, the last time, you calculated where he... where Hawkeye went down to within a few hundred yards. You work on that. Thor, you keep Haseleu and his men busy. Tell them that story about that big wolf thing you fought as a kid."

Bruce cocked an eyebrow. "Where do you want me?"

"You're with me. You're better at pancakes than I am," Steve said wryly.

Bruce and everyone else laughed at that. The last time Steve had attempted to make pancakes had been a disaster.

Bruce's laugh died to a wistful smile when he recalled the scene in the kitchen at the tower. There was batter everywhere, and the smell of burned pancakes wafting up in billows of smoke. Everyone had been shocked into silence until Hawkeye had wandered in, stopped dead in his tracks, and then started laughing hysterically.

When a half-cooked pancake had dropped from the ceiling onto Steve's head, the assassin's eyes had widened, and he had fallen to the floor, helpless in his gales of laughter. The rest of the team had just stood there, looking from the destruction in the kitchen to the usually somber team mate, laughing so hard he could barely catch a breath.

Bruce shook the memory away and got started on his pancakes, which, while not that great, were at least edible. Both he and Steve worked hard and breakfast was soon ready.

The team gathered around the table, and settled in to eat. Before he sat down, Steve frowned. "Where's Natasha?"

Bruce shrugged as he reached for his share of the scrambled eggs. "Don't know. Probably sleeping in."

"Whoa, you can't allow that, Cap. Teamwork requires discipline you know. You'd better go wake her up."

Bruce fought to hide his smirk at Tony's jab. For a moment, Steve got a deer in headlights look, but in true Captain America style, he firmed up his jaw and headed for the bedrooms. As he passed Tony, he said sternly, "Don't throw my words back at me, Stark."

Tony waited a beat before muttering, "If you don't want to eat them, don't put the words out there."

If Steve heard Tony's remark, and Bruce was willing to bet he did, he ignored it, disappearing down the bedroom hallway. No sooner was the man out of sight, than Natasha stepped into the room from the double glass doors leading to the deck.

She walked over to the table, and took her place as Thor greeted her, "Good morning. Do you fare well, Natasha?"

She smiled briefly at the tall Norseman. "Yes, thank you, I'm fine."

"Well, you won't be when Cap gets through with you," Tony smirked. "You're undermining team discipline."

Steve returned from the bedrooms and headed to his place at the head of the table. "And don't put words into my mouth, Stark," he said in the same stern tone as before. Sitting down, he looked to Natasha. "Everything okay?"

Natasha simply nodded as she filled her plate. The team ate their breakfast in relative silence. Of course, anytime Tony Stark was around, there was noise.

Bruce only half listened as the man droned on about how he had used the actual data to narrow down the search area. Tony was convinced he had the area down to football field size.

All but Thor were finishing up when Steve's cell phone rang making everybody jump. Cap insisted on a ringtone that sounded just like a ringing phone from the 1940's. It was loud and obnoxious to Bruce's ears, but it pleased Steve so he ignored it.

Bruce noticed that Natasha, whose phone was on vibrate, got a call at the same time. Both she and Steve were reading a text message, deep frowns on their faces.

Steve looked up and going into full Captain America mode said angrily, "Well, I guess that explains that."

Bruce felt the Hulk stir when Natasha also put on her game face. "Yes. But there's nothing we can do about it now. For now, we have our orders."

"Orders? What orders?" Tony frowned, not liking being out of the loop.

Steve let out a breath. "We're needed to extract an agent from a Hydra base."

"What the hell? Why us? Why can't they send in Haseleu?"

"Because they don't want to send in Haseleu. They want to send us. And before you start, the us is Natasha and I, so I don't want to hear any of your malarky about not having to follow orders."

As the two men spoke, Natasha got up and retrieved one of the satellite maps. Dropping it onto the breakfast table, she double checked the coordinates on her phone, and put her finger on the map. "It's here."

Bruce looked where she was pointing, and felt his stomach drop as realization swept over him. It was the half-hidden fishing camp that Tasha had pointed out the previous day. "That's why. That's why they sent us on the wild goose chase. They didn't want us endangering their agent."

"Fury, that rat bastard," Tony seethed with anger.

"Hey, before you get on your high horse, keep in mind that agent could have been Tasha. Or Clint. How would you feel if they were killed because some SHIELD agents were blundering around in the area?"

Steve had already calmed himself, and was the voice of reason. Even Tony could understand his point. But, Tony being Tony, he couldn't let it slide. "I don't blunder. You might blunder, but I don't."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Okay. Well, Tasha and I shouldn't be gone for more than an hour or so. Then we'll need to regroup and decide our next move."

"Our next move is to get out there and find Barton," Tony said stubbornly.

For once in agreement, Steve nodded. "Yes. Absolutely. But we need to take that base into account. You fellows work on a plan and Tasha and I will scout the base as best we can."

"Steve, I will not stay here, as none of us should. We are a team, and if you go into danger to rescue this agent, then so should we all," Thor said firmly.

"I agree. Steve, we can check out the base while you and Tasha get the agent," Bruce added.

Steve looked at his team thoughtfully. Sighing, he turned to Tasha. "What do you think? Too dangerous?"

"For who? The Hydra base?"

Bruce joined Tony and Thor in smirking evilly. Steve looked around at his team, and couldn't help a smile. "All right, then, everybody suit up. Let's go save a SHIELD agent."