The air was crisp and cold. Even Steve shivered as he stumbled across the rocky terrain. But neither the temperature nor the terrain were the reason why Steve's mood was darkening faster than the clouds above their heads. "C'mon, Buck," Steve teased, "you can push me harder than that. There's no way that a HYDRA guard..."

A solid shove caught Steve off-guard, sending him to the ground face-first. His teeth bit deeply into his tongue as his chin collided with the frozen path. Steve spit out the small pool of blood in his mouth before turning toward his 'captors'.

In contrast to the stoic, heavily masked face of the "Winter Soldier", Ward's smile was cocky and unrepentant. It was a contrast he knew would grate on the older Avenger...and sell their ruse to any HYDRA guards who were watching the closed circuit feed. "Nice to see you 'take one for the team', Cap," Ward teased.

The look Steve gave Ward would have shot fear through the heart of even the toughest HYDRA agent. "We could have done this without you," he growled at Ward. "How do I know you're not going to turn on us the second we get in there?"

Ward's face fell. "Guess you don't, do you?" he replied coolly, his joking mood shutting down under the force of Steve's icy glare. He forcibly turned Steve around by his handcuffed wrists. "Let's go."

The trio made their way down the remaining path until they reached a cliff face. Ward's brow furrowed in confusion. "This is the place?" he asked Bucky in a low, quiet whisper. Bucky nodded quietly, but the blank stares on the faces of both Bucky and Steve only served to confuse Ward further. "So how the hell are we supposed to get their..."

Ward's comment was cut off when the ground fell out from under their feet. The three men fell for what felt like an eternity. Only the reflexes built on decades of martial arts training kept Ward's legs from breaking when they made impact with the hard cement floor four stories below ground level. "What the hell..."

"State your business," the lead guard demanded of the group. A dozen AK-47s were pointed at Ward's head.

"Agent Grant Ward," Ward introduced himself. "I work...worked...with John Garrett..."

The guard cut Ward off. "I have never heard of him," he insisted. "Or you. So give me one good reason we shouldn't kill you right now..."

"He doesn't need to," Bucky countered, speaking for the first time since they arrived. He took off the mask, showing his full face to the group in front of him. The guards lowered their weapons, standing at attention instantly. "I see you know who I am," said Bucky.

"SIR, YES SIR!" the guards yelled loudly.

"Then I'm guessing you know who he is as well," Bucky told the guard who had spoken to him.

"Y-y-y-yes, yes sir," the spokesman-guard replied, suddenly nervous.

"Agent Ward here was the one who captured him," Bucky explained, sticking to the story they had previously agreed upon. "I found the two of them wandering around in the woods when I picked up on your radio comm..."

The last word of Bucky's explanation caught the guard's attention. "We haven't used radios down here in at least ten..."

The guard jerked violently before he could finish his argument. The convulsions spread through the group like wildfire until the only three people left standing were Ward, Steve and Bucky. Steve rolled his eyes and turned away from the men beside him. "Really?" he asked the empty air. "This was your big plan?"

Every empty inch of floor space filled with people in the blink of an eye. "No," Castle replied, his own defensive annoyance clearly obvious even in the simple word. "Your 'friend' over there was about to blow it for all of us. I had to improvise."

Bucky held up his hands in a defensive posture. "How was I supposed to know?" he insisted. "I haven't been here in thirty years!"

"Enough," Beckett announced forcefully, ending the argument before it had a chance to begin as she slung one of the guard's rifles over her shoulder. "Those who want weapons have got 'em. Let's just find Doctor Foster's friends before these guys wake up."

Bucky picked his jaw up off the floor, fighting through his shock and confusion as everyone else in the group took off down the hallway. "Wait, they're going to wake up?!"

#

The firefight was the most intense gun battle that the Guardians had experienced in a long time. It felt like every time Castle took down a group of HYDRA agents, another group would come in to take its place - guns blazing from the second they turned the corner. "God, are they insta-cloning these guys?!" Castle exclaimed. "How many more of them could there be?!"

Beckett threw her weapon away, cursing in frustration as she heard the quiet click of the empty cartridge. "I'm out," she declared.

"And I can't keep this up forever," added Castle, fatigue, stress and genuine worry creeping into his voice. "Something down here is fighting every spell I cast."

"We need to split up," announced Steve. "This place is too big. We'll never find them at this rate."

"Agreed," Jim chimed in, throwing away his own weapon. He turned to Beckett. "You hear it in the echoes, right?"

Beckett nodded. "You take Merlin and Crusher, I'll take Master Sìfāng?"

"Roger that," agreed Jim...before something caught his attention. "Hey rook, you smell that?" he asked Beckett.

Beckett opened her sense of smell at Jim's prompting and immediately picked up on the offending odor. "What is that?" she asked.

"No clue," Jim replied. "You find out, you let me know?"

"Roger that," agreed Beckett, reloading her weapon with a clip she found on an unconscious guard. "Be safe...rook," she warned Jim with a smirk.

The Sentinel rolled his eyes even as the corners of his mouth turned up in a bemused half-smile at the comment. "Break a leg."

"I hope not," Beckett countered with a chuckle as she led her team down the hallway.

#

For the first time in her life, Melinda May was having trouble keeping up. Even though she was running as fast as she had ever run in her life, the Guardians and their allies kept disappearing from her view. Only by following the sounds of fighting was she able to keep tabs on the group at all. Finally, though, her legs and lungs gave up the ghost. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. "How in God's name did I get stuck with all the superpowereds?" May flinched as she heard her own words, the comments reminding her that her old friend Phil Coulson now fell into the category of people with superpowers. I don't know if I'll ever get used to that...

As if on cue, that old friend appeared by her side. "You okay?" asked Coulson.

May stood up as her breath returned to her. "What a day to leave my super-speed on the Bus, huh?" she joked.

Coulson shared her friend's smile, his expression showing much more amusement than May's. "Hop on. We'll catch up."

May's eyes widened as she warily eyed Coulson's back. She opened her mouth to protest...then closed it just as quickly when she remembered how Coulson had lifted Ward above his head with one hand. "Okay," she agreed with a surrendered shrug.

They were with the Guardians a few seconds later. The group was stopped in the center of a lab. They were staring at a bank of storage lockers and computers at the far end of the room. May followed the Guardians' line of sight...and gawked in open-mouthed shock when she realized exactly what she was looking at. "Is that...?"

"Loki's scepter," Coulson agreed, recognizing the artifact before his partner had. A knot of terrible memories formed in the pit of his stomach as his face drained of color. "The weapon that killed me."

Beckett gasped when she heard Coulson's statement. The words seemed to instantly break the 'spell' that the object was holding over the room. "Phil?" she asked Coulson.

Ryan felt the conflicting emotions pouring off of Coulson in waves. "You all right, man?" he asked Coulson, already knowing the answer to his question.

Coulson ignored the Guardians' questions, deliberately choosing to focus on the matter at hand. "What's it doing here?"

Castle's focus seemed to be entirely on the spear and not on the spear at the same time. "The scepter's shielded," he mused, thinking out loud as he ran his hands over the back wall, inch by inch.

"Shielded?" asked May.

"Master Sìfāng can create a physical shield by manipulating energy," Coulson explained.

"I'm not creating this one," Castle argued, his hands never losing their careful, deliberate movement. "In fact...I think I've been fighting this one since we got here."

May's eyes widened. "Please don't tell me that HYDRA has wizards..."

"No," Beckett countered, her eyes following Castle's every move. "I can feel the energy. It's not magical."

"But it's close?" asked Fallon.

"It's close enough," Castle and Beckett replied simultaneously. Beckett then explained, "the Sìfāng's been blocked by counter-frequencies before. HYDRA just happened to stumble on one and they're using it to protect the spear."

The couple stopped in front of a locker just to the right of the spear. "There," Castle declared, wincing as he took a step back, away from the door. "That's it. That's the source of the energy."

Ryan forced the door open, revealing the bank of computers contained within. He tried to get closer to the computers themselves, but stopped after taking only a few steps. "I can't get any closer either."

"You can't rip the computers out of the locker?" asked Coulson.

Ryan shook his head as he massaged his temples. "I can't get any closer without sending lightning bolts through my skull."

May grimaced as she watched all the Guardians wince and nod in defeated agreement. She then saw movement out of the corner of her eye and acted on instinct. May pulled a technician out from underneath his desk, shoved him against the nearest wall and pointed her gun at his chest. "How do you shut it down?"

The clearly terrified tech shook his head, fighting to respond through terror-filled sobs. "Please don't..."

May was undaunted. "Shut. It. Down," she demanded.

Resigned to his fate, the technician ground his teeth. White foam immediately poured from between his lips as convulsions forced May to release her grip. The smell of bitter almonds was unmistakable. "Cyanide," she declared.

"Never let it be said that HYDRA doesn't respect tradition," Coulson quipped, trying to lighten the mood. When the attempt failed, he returned his attention to the spear. "We can't let a weapon like this stay in HYDRA's possession."

"Agreed," the group chimed in in unison.

"But you guys can't go anywhere near that shield?" Coulson asked the Guardians. The four Guardians shook their heads.

Coulson looked into the eyes of his spirit-brother and the two men seemed to come to a silent decision. Moving as one, Fallon and Coulson sprinted toward the locker and ripped out the computers with their bare hands.

The resulting explosion was enough to rock the ground underneath their feet and send concrete chunks raining down from the ceiling above them. May dove behind the dead technician's desk out of an instinctive sense of self-preservation. But once the initial blast cleared away, all thoughts of self-preservation left as May took in the carnage before her.

They were dead.

They were all dead.

And the scepter was gone.

#