Things have been going well for our heroes for a little while now. One can imagine a certain red-faced supervillain is not particularly pleased about that...

The rest of the weekend was uneventful. Steve took off Saturday afternoon and rode his bike around for a while. Not with Peggy this time—he loved riding with her, but after missions, no matter how well or badly they'd gone, he liked to get out on his own and clear his head a little. When he was out there, he thought back often to the night after his first mission, sitting in the common room with Bucky and both of them trying to wrap their heads around taking lives and how to live with that. It had hurt then, and it still hurt now, and Bucky had been right then, it always should. But Bucky had been right, too, that even though it never got easier, they did get better at making peace with it. Being out alone in the world like this helped Steve's soul to settle, to get his eyes on that big picture of why he was doing this and the good things that were out there that made the fight worth it.

He made it back in time for dinner and caught up with Bucky at the Hufflepuff table. His knuckles were scraped and bloody in spots—Steve sought out contemplative solitude after a mission, but the punching bags were where Bucky got things figured out.

"Good ride?" Bucky asked him.

"Yeah," Steve replied. "No gloves this time?" Sometimes if the mission had been a rough one, Bucky would do his punching bare-knuckled, but Steve didn't think anything had happened on this mission to bring that on.

Bucky smiled, knowing what Steve was asking. "All the ones in my size were taken. Tape kept slipping off," he added, gesturing with the hand that had more blood on it.

Satisfied that nothing was wrong, Steve changed the subject. "How's that kid, Alfie, doing?"

"He's good," Bucky replied. "He's got a couple of days before he can walk again, but he'll be fine." He grinned. "I went up and checked on him after lunch, and he's already cranky about having to spend the next few days in bed. Reminds me of this other tough little guy I used to know."

Steve snorted. "You'd think I was the devil the way you complain about what I'm like when I'm sick."

"Have you met you when you're sick?" Bucky countered.

Steve responded by throwing a chunk of potato at him.

The next little while, mission-wise, was very quiet. They found a second factory in Italy and took that out, but otherwise, things were calm. There was nothing urgent that required their attention, and Phillips was still very meticulously going over all the lines of communication and contacts and informants he had, trying to figure out how much damage Kendall had done and what needed fixing and who could be trusted.

It was kind of weird, not doing anything, and Steve felt a little restless about it, like he was waiting for something bad to happen out there while they were just hanging out here. At the same time, though, the break was nice. He had time to do his homework, he had time to sit out by the lake with Peggy, he had time to join Bucky in teasing Becky about this Mickey kid she started going out with (and discreetly checking up on him to make sure he was a good guy)…He had time to sleep. Sleeping was nice. He kind of missed it when they were going all the time.

Now that Kendall was out of the way, more S.S.R. people were able to take over in looking through the stuff they'd brought back from Schmidt's house—what with the trial being set up and cancelled and everything, no one had had a lot of time to devote to it over the summer—and that was good, because most of it was too technical for Steve's team to make much out of. It was still pretty neat to look through, though. Steve did wonder at what point in his life Schmidt had gotten so bad, or if he'd always been that way. Some of this stuff he was coming up with was pretty impressive and could have some applications that actually helped people—if only he wasn't an evil, tyrannical nutjob.

"You boys ready for another job?" Peggy asked when they gathered at their usual Wednesday meeting.

"Please," Dugan pleaded dramatically.

"Poor guy hasn't blown anything up since Italy," Gabe pointed out.

"And he's got nothing to do but homework now," Monty added.

Peggy smirked. "How do you feel about a mine?"

"I have reservations about missions in mines," Steve said.

"This one's been active for a while," Peggy said with a smile. "No giant snakes."

"Alright," Steve said skeptically. "Whatcha got?"

"I'm afraid it is in France," she said apologetically, and Steve groaned. "But it's a naquadah mine."

Jim let out a low, impressed whistle. "Did you say naquadah?" Peggy nodded. "Whoa."

"Qu'est-ce que naquadah?" Jacques asked.

"It's one of the other metals that conducts energy," Dugan told him. "Both magical and not. Not as rare as vibranium," he said, hooking a thumb at Steve. "But it's up there. Expensive as hell, too."

Gabe looked up at Peggy. "Are we gonna steal a naquadah mine from Hydra?"

"Yes, although, technically, they stole it from us first." She looked over at Steve. "Howard uses a lot of naquadah in his designs. That's one of the reasons we want it back. Our main concern, though, is this," she said, unrolling one of the blueprints from their raid of Schmidt's house. "This is an engine that's connected to the Valkyrie in some way. Whatever the Valkyrie is, it's big, and this is too small to power the whole thing. But because of the naquadah, this engine can go a long way on very little fuel, and the design is oddly dangerously conductive. This thing will explode with very little provocation, and if you add some sort of bomb on top of that…Howard thinks it's designed for some sort of mass destruction kamikaze mission."

"Okay, so, that's bad," Steve sighed. "So, we cut them off, but how do we know they can't get more?"

"Like Dugan said, there's not a lot of it around. What there is is very tightly controlled. If we can get this one away from them and back under our control, it becomes extremely difficult for them to get more."

They got down to the business of planning, and Steve tried to swallow down the knot of apprehension in his stomach. They were going to France and they were going underground, and it was just superstition, he knew that, but he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling entirely. They couldn't not go, though. Hydra was bad enough without kamikaze machines. Then there was the whole fighting over resources thing too. Like the diamonds in South Africa or the Tesseract, Steve knew naquadah had more than just destructive uses, but he knew that was all anyone wanted it for. But, then, leaving something like that in the hands of Hydra was not an option either.

"You okay?" Bucky asked as they left the planning session.

Steve sighed. "This whole thing sucks."

Bucky nodded. He shared Steve's feelings about magical energy sources and the war. "Although, at least if we have the stuff and our side is making weapons out of it, it's got to be better than Hydra doing the same thing."

Steve nodded. "I still don't like it, though."

"Me neither."

"We can't let them get what they need for those engines, though," Steve said.

"So, let's go to France," Bucky sighed.

Though not everyone on the team shared Steve's misgivings about what would happen with the naquadah after the S.S.R. got it back, they did all share his concern about going to back to France. They loaded up on protective and defensive charms, armed themselves to the teeth, and Jim's medical bag and Monty's weapons bag were full to bursting.

They apparated into an area of the French Alps that was currently not under Grindelwald's control, which meant magical transportation was a little bit freer. Nazis did still have this part of France, but they weren't as worried about them. It was a couple hours' hike to the mine. Since magical transport in the area was unmonitored, the Hydra guys could come and go freely from the mine, but Jim and Dugan weren't sure how far out they might have cast their defenses, so they gave themselves a wide berth to be safe.

When they did reach the magical boundary line, they took a lot of care in examining it and finding a way in. Steve knew Jim was still sore about their meddling being detected in Romania, so he was being extra careful this time. When they finally decided they knew what to do, Jim and Dugan touched their wands to the air where the barrier began, and a hazy golden glow appeared, marking where the spell was. A hole about six feet tall appeared in the haze, and Jim ushered them through it, he and Dugan keeping their wands touching the wall the whole time. They had to do a complicated sort of twist and turn for both of them to get inside while keeping their wands on the barrier, but they managed, and the hole snapped shut behind them.

"Okay," Steve said. "Stay sharp." They moved forward quietly, Jacques sneaking up ahead to be lookout, Steve watching the forest in front of them and Bucky watching their six. Jacques came back to steer them around a pack of wolves he'd spotted up ahead, but otherwise they made it to the mine unimpeded.

With just the one entrance, getting in was going to be tricky. They'd debated for a while on Wednesday the pros and cons of drawing them out of the mine and fighting in the open, but ultimately decided against it—the woods were too open, and if they could keep the fight contained, they had a better chance of getting everyone without someone escaping and calling for reinforcements. And one of the benefits of recapturing territory was that the S.S.R. already had maps of this mine, so they knew what was in there. They just had to get in.

Bucky and Jacques fanned out to take the guards outside. Once they came back and reported the area clear, Monty moved forward, pulling out from his weapons bag a little satchel full of curse bombs. He slunk into the entrance as far as he dared, then set them rolling into the entry cavern. He ran out quickly, and there was surprisingly little noise, just a cloud of blue mist that floated out of the entrance that he warned them to keep well clear of.

When he decided it was safe, they moved in. All seven guards were down, and looked to be in the grip of various unpleasant curses. They immobilized and tied up the ones who were still alive, then set a barrier spell across the entrance so no one could sneak up on them. Noise further down the mine shaft told them their entrance had not gone entirely unnoticed.

They waited for their attackers to come to them instead of rushing to meet them in the narrow corridor. There was better light here in the front, and more room to maneuver. The crowd of men that appeared from deeper in the mine seemed to be a mixture of Hydra soldiers and miners. They fought the Hydra soldiers with everything they had, but their plan for the miners was to incapacitate, not kill. Peggy had suspected that most of them were locals or some of the former mine workers, forced through curses and threats to keep working. Steve recognized several sets of the glassy eyes that came from trying and failing to fight off the Imperious Curse.

"Whoa!" he shouted, ducking down and raising his shield. The guy in front of him may have been fighting against his will, but that wouldn't matter if that pickaxe of his came down on Steve's skull.

This was the weirdest fight Steve had ever been in. Everyone was trying to kill them, but fighting with the non-magical miners felt more like one of the brawls in the courtyard at school—lots of punching and kicking and biting. Well, it felt like a schoolyard brawl with pickaxes and shovels and sledgehammers added in. Add in the Hydra soldiers who were shooting spells to kill, and Steve really had to stay on his toes.

He quickly realized too that the Hydra guys were unconcerned about the fate of the miners, not even flinching if one of them got caught in the path of a spell intended for a Howling Commando. So now he was fighting miners and trying to shield them at the same time. "Seriously, lay off with the sledgehammer, man!" he snapped at a guy who was determinedly trying to shatter Steve's femur. He used his shield to block a curse that would have caught sledgehammer-guy in the chest, then swung the shield around and clocked him in the head. "Trying to save your life here."

Three of the Hydra soldiers converged on Steve, and their spells were coming at him so fast he felt like he was dancing trying to avoid them. He flung his shield out in their direction, and as soon as it left his hand, something hard and heavy smashed into the back of his head and sent him to the floor. Two of the miners—oh, no, wait, that was just one of them, he was seeing double after that blow—one of the miners was standing over him with a shovel, and it took Steve longer than it should have to realize he needed to roll out of the way because the pointy end was coming down toward his chest. He made it out of the way just in time, and he didn't think his brain could get him on his feet yet so he swept out with a leg, taking down shovel-guy and swinging the foot back around again to kick him in the side of the head and knock him out.

Hands were on his arm and the harnesses on his uniform and he was back up on his feet again. "Steve, are you okay? Your head's bleeding," Bucky said worriedly.

"I'm fine, I—get down!" he yelled and Bucky dropped, and Steve wasn't sure where his shield was but his fingers found the shovel that had almost killed him and he swung it at the Hydra soldier that had been coming up behind Bucky, and, wow, that wasn't a vibration-free shovel was it? Not like his shield was, 'cause he felt that all the way up his arm, but it took the guy down pretty good, and, wait, Bucky was saying something, what was he talking about?

"Steve, stop talking about shovels and sit down," Bucky told him.

"Still fighting," Steve protested, nodding out at what was anywhere from ten to forty guys, depending on what his vision was doing. Either way, the fight was still happening.

"Steve, I—whoa!" Bucky yanked Steve off to the side and Steve felt the flare of a shield spell springing to life. Someone was shooting fire at them, and Bucky could protect them but not fight back, so Steve hung on to Bucky's shoulder to keep himself balanced and started shooting curses out through the shield at whoever was trying to light them on fire.

"Point th' shield that way," Steve said when they were done, nodding to where Jim was fighting off a soldier and some miners.

Bucky looked over at him skeptically. "How many of Jim do you see right now?"

"Three?" Steve guessed.

Bucky shook his head. "How about you make the shield and I'll shoot at the bad guys? Last thing we need is you taking our medic down."

"Fair 'nough," Steve agreed. "Switch!" He flung up a shield spell of his own, and that was probably a good idea of Bucky's, because shield spells, he was good at and he could do those without thinking, and thinking sort of hurt right now. Bucky started firing curses at the guys fighting Jim, not flinching as bursts of light flared against Steve's shield spell where spells or bullets were trying to hit them.

Steve kept the shield up, but he had to let go of Bucky's shoulder to punch a miner that was coming behind them with a hammer, and seriously, what was with these guys and their hammers? The miner went down and Steve wobbled and just managed to grab Bucky's shoulder again before hitting the floor himself. "Sorry," he muttered, knowing that he'd yanked Bucky off balance. The shield was still up, though.

"You okay?" Bucky replied, shooting a quick glance over at him.

" 'm good," Steve assured him. He decided he should keep the shield up without looking at it so that he could keep a better lookout behind them.

He wasn't sure how much later it was when Bucky said, "Really, Steve, you can drop the shield now. We're good."

"You sure we're done fighting?" Steve asked. He didn't see anyone standing up who shouldn't be, but he could still hear things exploding.

"Yes," Bucky said firmly. "All done. Shield down. Okay, good job. Now, sit down."

"Stop talking in little sentences," Steve complained, lowering himself to the ground. That did feel nice, sitting down. "I'm not stupid."

Bucky huffed a semi-amused laugh. "No, you're not, but you're ignoring all my long sentences."

"What?"

"Sit," Bucky said. "Stay."

Bucky may or may not have walked away, but then he was there and so was Jim, and Jim was taking Steve's helmet off and making him drink something that tasted like milk. As the last of whatever Jim had him drink hit his stomach, it was like someone had flipped all the lights back on and Steve's head felt instantly clear. Jim was crouching in front of him, looking him in the eye. "Better?" he asked.

"Yeah," Steve said, rubbing the back of his head gingerly. "Man, that guy packed a punch! What the hell kind of shovel was that?"

"Naquadah alloy," Jim replied. "It's a pain to dig up, but if you heat it and mix it just right, you can use it to dig the rest of it easier. You're lucky you have that helmet and all that super-juice. I'm surprised it didn't split your skull."

"You're sure he's alright?" Bucky asked.

"He's fine," Jim assured him. "Minor concussion, easy fix. The bone in the back cracked a little, but I got that fused back together."

"Is everybody okay?" Steve asked, looking around.

"Yeah," Jim said. "Hydra guys are down, and we've got the miners knocked out and locked up and waiting for an Auror to come un-curse them." He waved over to where the miners were chained up with the surviving Hydra guards in the corner. "Dugan blocked off the shaft so no one can interrupt us while we're getting ourselves back together," he added, waving to the entrance to the rest of the mine. "You actually weren't the worst injury we had," Jim continued. "Gabe took a good hit with an electric drill, but I got that fixed up before I got to you." Steve shot concerned eyes over in Gabe's direction, but he was up and walking and looking over a map with Jacques. "We're all good and ready to head deeper," Jim finished.

"Okay," Steve said, standing up. "Where's my shield?"

"I got it," Bucky said, picking it up from where it was leaning on the wall and handing it to him. "You sure you're alright?"

"I'm sure." Steve smirked. "I paid attention to all those long sentences of Jim's."

"Punk," Bucky muttered, elbowing him in the side.

They regrouped and repacked their gear and made sure no one that was chained up was going anywhere any time soon, then turned their attention to the mine shaft. That had probably been the largest wave they were going to face, but that didn't mean there wasn't anyone else down here. A quick spell checking for people confirmed that theory, and they set off deeper into the mine.

Most of the people they ran into as they went in farther were more miners, still enchanted, but they didn't seem to have been ordered to attack them. They tied them up anyway, just to be safe. They did come across a few more knots of soldiers, and they took a few more injuries before they got through all of them. Bucky took a curse in the gut that left him white as a sheet and unable to do more than just lie there for a good twenty minutes after Jim fixed him up. Dugan lost a finger that Jacques was able to find quickly enough for Jim to reattach.

"What…" Steve asked as they got going again after everyone was okay. He shivered, like he was trying to dislodge something itchy that had fallen down the back of his shirt. "What is that?"

"You feel it too?" Jim asked. Usually Jim felt the magic in the air before any of the rest of them, but whatever this was was strong. Steve felt like he should be able to hear it humming. "It's the naquadah," Jim explained. "We're deep enough now, it's in the walls around us. It conducts magical energy, remember? And there's been a lot of it flying around."

"Ugh," Steve shuddered. That was a weird feeling.

"It's just humming around," Jim added. "It'll bleed off deeper into the rocks, and if we keep walking, we'll get away from where it's active."

They walked on, coming across one more knot of miners, and three more Hydra soldiers that they were able to take down without getting hurt. They came to what appeared to be a set of very utilitarian living quarters and some sort of office. There wasn't enough room for all the miners to live down here, but it seemed like a place to catch a quick catnap between shifts. The office was a big space but didn't have much more than a telegraph, a radio, and a phone, probably for communicating with people back up at the top.

"I should probably have a look through here," Gabe said, eyeing the office and communication gear. "It's probably just for stuff like asking for medical help in a cave in or stuff like that, but I want to make sure there's nothing important."

"Good idea," Steve agreed. "Monty, Dugan, you guys want to sweep the living quarters?"

"Aye, aye, Captain," Dugan said, shooting him a salute.

It didn't take them long to search the few bedrooms and the kitchen, and they were back before Gabe finished with the desk. "Um, guys?" Jim said. "Is that supposed to be doing that?" He pointed at the telegraph on the side desk. It was clicking quietly and rapidly.

"Maybe it's receiving a message?" Monty said dubiously.

"Not in any language I know," Gabe said, listening to the sounds it was making.

"It's also not plugged in," Bucky pointed out.

"Fall back now," Steve said, not sure what was going on, but sure that it wasn't good. The naquadah had started humming again, stronger than before, and he could feel it in his bones.

"It's a bit late for that, I'm afraid," said a voice that none of them recognized. They whirled around, but no one was standing in the door but Jacques, who'd been guarding it. He was facing them, though, not the hallway, and his eyes were completely white. Steve realized with a jolt that it was him that had spoken—he'd never heard Jacques speak English before. Jacques' lips curled up in a smile that was anything but friendly. "Hello, Captain."

"What the hell?" Bucky whispered.

"Jacques?" Gabe asked nervously.

"I don't think that's Jacques," Jim said.

Jacques, or whoever was in there, smirked. "Very good. And it's…Jim, isn't it?"

"Who are you and what the hell did you do to Jacques?" Steve demanded.

Not-Jacques shrugged. "Just stopping in for a chat. I'm not hurting him. Yet," he added with a smile that made it quite clear he could if wanted to.

"How about you get the hell out of him?" Gabe growled, stepping forward.

"I don't think touching him's a good idea," Dugan said warily, putting hand out to stop Gabe.

"I would listen to Mr. Dugan," the person inside Jacques said. "As I said, I'm not hurting him yet, but…" He shrugged theatrically. "If I feel provoked, who knows what could happen?"

"Who are you?" Steve demanded again.

They all jumped when Monty answered. "Can't you tell?" he asked. The knot that was twisting in Steve's chest turned to lead and dropped into the pit of his stomach. Monty's eyes had gone white too, and he was smirking just like Jacques was.

"We haven't spoken in some time." And now Monty and Jacques were speaking in unison and Steve didn't think he'd ever seen anything creepier in his life. "But you're supposed to be a smart boy," they said. "Care to venture a guess?"

Steve had to swallow a couple of times before he could speak. "Schmidt," he said. He had no idea how Schmidt was doing this, but it couldn't be anyone else.

Monty and Jacques laughed. "Oh, very good! Very good. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way. You were still a civilian when we met in Azzano. Not that we had time for pleasantries then." The two of them swung their heads in Bucky's direction. "Nice to see you back on your feet, Sergeant. It seems you were able to survive Arnim's ministrations, which, I must say, is an impressive feat in its own right. There are so few who do. Especially since he was trying to kill you there towards the end. Evidently, he found you supremely irritating."

Bucky looked like he might throw up, but he glared back angrily. "What the hell do you want?"

"As I said," a new voice answered, and Bucky yelped and jumped away from Dugan. "Just stopping in for a chat. I've been meaning to get in touch with you for some time, and the opportunity has finally presented itself."

"Oh, crap, oh, crap, oh, crap," Jim muttered, backing away from the trio of his white-eyed friends.

"Dude, what the hell is this?" Gabe whispered.

Jim shook his head. "I don't know," he breathed.

"Do I have your attention yet, Captain?" Dugan, Monty and Jacques asked.

"Yes!" Steve snapped. "I'm listening, okay? Just…" He waved at his friends and whatever the hell Schmidt was doing. "Stop it!"

The three of them chuckled. "It is quite difficult to have a conversation with someone who's not physically present," they said. "That's why I started this in the first place. And if I stopped, we wouldn't be able to talk, you and I."

"Fine!" Steve snapped. "You wanna talk?" He had to stop and swallow again before he could get the next sentence out. He was terrified to make the offer he was about to make, but it was him Schmidt wanted. He couldn't do anything else. "Take me, then."

"Steve—" Bucky started, eyes wide in alarm.

"Take me!" Steve said a little louder, cutting Bucky off. "You want to talk to me, then let's do it. You let them go and jump in here." He gestured at his head. "And we can talk all you want."

Dugan, Monty and Jacques laughed gleefully. "Oh, you really do take that label of 'hero' so seriously, don't you?" they replied. "To think that someone that noble actually exists, it's like…It's like something out of a cartoon."

"Are we gonna do it?" Steve growled.

"No," they responded. "It would be more efficient, I admit. But the fact of the matter is, I can't. Erskine really did take much more care with your version of the serum than he did with mine." It was hard to tell with three voices speaking at once, but Steve thought he detected a touch of bitterness there.

"I can't get into your head, Captain," they continued. "And, really, even if I could…"

"It's ever so much more fun this way," Jim said, turning his white eyes up to Steve, and Steve instinctively backed up several steps before he could catch himself.

"Okay," Steve snarled. "You've made your point." If he could just get him to stop…taking over his friends and just talk to him, maybe they could still figure out a way to get out of this.

"Oh, I don't know that I have," the four of them said as one. "You are a smart boy, but from what I hear, you're terribly stubborn. I've unnerved you, certainly, but I don't know that my point has quite sunk all the way in to that thick head of yours."

"Cap?" Gabe whispered nervously, and Steve knew what he was afraid of, but he didn't know how to stop it. He stepped forward, putting himself between Gabe and Bucky and the rest of them, though he didn't think it would help.

"No, it really has," Steve insisted. "You're trying to show me that you can get to me, and you have, okay? You've freaked me the hell out," he admitted, and it hurt to do it, but if it would keep Schmidt from spreading any further…

Steve flinched and swallowed down a rising swell of panic when he heard Gabe chuckle behind him. "I'm glad to hear it," Gabe said, and Steve spun slowly on his heel to face his milky-eyed friend. "But I wasn't finished yet."

"So, talk," Steve said softly. He faced the five members of his team that Schmidt was talking through, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Bucky, lips pressed tightly together and tremors running up from his clenched fists. They both knew he was next, and Steve had no idea how to keep it from happening. "You said you wanted to talk to me. I'm listening. What do you want to talk about?"

"You," the five of them said. "The famous 'Captain America'."

"What about me?" Steve asked.

"What you are," they replied. "What you could be. And what you're going to do."

"Nice of you to be so worried about my future," Steve said, wondering as soon as the words were out of his mouth if sarcasm would just make things worse.

They all chuckled. "Oh, it isn't your future I'm worried about, Captain," they told him. "I'd hardly come all this way for that."

"So…" Steve prompted.

"So," they continued. "What you are is out of your depth. A little boy, fighting a war that's far too big for him, because he thinks he knows what it means to do the right thing."

"And what is the right thing supposed to be?" Steve countered. "What you're doing?"

"Pssh!" they all scoffed. "The right thing. There's no such thing, Captain. Right and wrong, they're just something to keep the lesser beings in line. What really matters is power. Strength and weakness, that's all there is. Those strong enough to take power, and the weak to be ruled under them. And you…" they all pointed at him. "You're strong enough to take that power. After what Erskine gave you, the world could be yours if you would let go of those pitiful morals holding you back."

"Is that what you did?"

"It is. And I have more power than a child like yourself could even begin to dream."

"And you're offering to share it with me?" Steve asked incredulously.

The five of them laughed at him, and that was the first laugh that sounded actually amused. "Oh, no, Captain," they said. "Not in the slightest. Power like this will never be yours, because you're not willing to do what it takes to get it. You're weak and pathetic because you are bound by the rules of ordinary men, and I have no intention of sharing what I've achieved with you or with anyone."

"Then why—" Steve started.

"I just wanted to show you what you're up against," came a voice from behind him.

"Oh, Bucky," Steve breathed. He swallowed down a wave of despairing nausea and took a second to school his face into something more controlled before turning around to face him.

"Thought I forgot about him, didn't you?" Schmidt-in-Bucky said with a wicked grin and dead white eyes. "I was just saving him for last. I know he's your favorite."

"What do you want?!" Steve demanded, and he couldn't keep all of that desperate helplessness out of his voice. Schmidt had everyone—everyone —and Steve didn't know what to do.

"I want this," Bucky said, raising his hands to gesture at Steve. "Right here. Steven Rogers, the boy playing the big hero, reminded of how insignificant he really is."

"I want you to see that no matter how good you think you are," Gabe hissed. "You're never going to be good enough to beat me."

"I want you to know, to really understand, who you've chosen as your enemy," Jim said.

"I want you to see what true power can do," Dugan said.

"And just how helpless you are to stop it," Monty finished.

"I want you to be afraid," Jacques told him. "To know fear for what may be the first time in your life."

"Because now there's something to be afraid of," they said as one, and a cold shiver ran down Steve's spine.

"I can reach out and shake the foundations of your reality from half a world away," they all went on together. "And it's barely a fraction of my power. This is what I want, Captain Steven Rogers. For you to know your place."

They all stepped forward, tightening their half-circle around him, and Steve couldn't stop himself from stepping back.

"And now we come to the part where we talk about what you're going to do," the six of them said. "Insignificant though you are, you have been making a nuisance of yourself, and from here on out, you are going to stay. Out. Of my way." Each of them threw their arms out, gesturing at one another. "Remember this, next time you want to destroy one of my factories. Remember this, next time you think about interfering in my plans. Remember what I can do."

They all smirked, and horror roared up out of Steve's heart and wrapped its hands around his throat as Bucky pulled his gun out of his belt and pressed the barrel up underneath his own chin. "And remember what I could do," he said softly, and something in that voice alone was more terrifying than all of them speaking together.

Steve couldn't do anything but try to remember how to breathe, his petrified eyes locked on Bucky's hand and the finger curled around the trigger. Bucky grinned evilly. "Now, I think you've gotten my point."

He tossed the gun carelessly at Steve's feet, and as one, each of his friends' eyes rolled back into their heads and they dropped to the floor like puppets with their strings cut.

With the sudden end of the humming of the naquadah in the walls and the abrupt lack of that frightening chorus of voices, the room felt so quiet that Steve could hear his heart pounding like a kettledrum. He half-dropped, half-fell to his knees next to Bucky, whose head was lolled back at an awkward angle and his mouth hanging partly open. Blood was trickling from his ear.

"Please, don't be dead; please, don't be dead; please, don't be dead," Steve whispered, ripping off his gloves as his fingers scrabbled frantically on Bucky's neck for a pulse. He let out a stuttering breath of relief when he found it, squeezing his eyes shut and ignoring the moisture that leaked out. He carefully lifted one of Bucky's eyelids, relieved to see that familiar steel blue staring back at him.

He checked each of his team mates, crawling from body to body with shaking arms. They were all breathing. They all had a pulse. Their eyes were all back to the colors they should be. They were all bleeding.

None of them would wake up.

Steve sat back on his haunches, leaning his head against the wall, and he hadn't had an asthma attack in almost two years, but his chest was getting tight and it felt like his airways were closing up and it was getting hard to breathe. He spent a couple of minutes just inhaling and exhaling. He was no good to anybody if he passed out.

He had no idea what to do. He had no idea what Schmidt had done. Was this more than just a warning? Had Schmidt actually…He hadn't killed them, but he did something, and Steve didn't know what it was or if it could be undone. He needed help.

Help. He needed help. He couldn't get it here. He couldn't leave them here to go get it. Schmidt had gotten them in here. Maybe he could get them anywhere else too, but he'd definitely gotten them in here, so Steve had to get them the hell OUT. Not apparation—he couldn't do side-along for that many at once, he'd have to leave some of them behind. He couldn't carry them outside to where it was safer—same problem. Portkey. He could do a Portkey.

After Zurich, he'd gotten Ethan to show him how to do it. He knew how, but Ethan had said you had to be careful making them. Steve was worried and distracted and about to throw up. He had to be careful. He had to do this right.

There was nothing big enough in here to move them all at the same time. Very quickly, Steve rushed across the hall to the living quarters and grabbed a dusty blanket off one of the beds before hurrying back. He tore it into strips, not tearing quite all the way through at alternating ends so that it unwound into one long strip of material. Checking once more to make sure his friends were all still alive and breathing, he then turned his back on them and tried to clear his mind, focusing on the spell and the blanket in front of him.

The fear that was growing in his mind refused to go away, so Steve shoved it back into the corner instead. It could come back in a minute. He could deal with it in a minute, he just had to get this right. He could do this.

Once the spell was done, Steve uncoiled the torn blanket, laying a strip of it over each of his friends. He sat down and clenched a length of it in his fist, waiting for the spell to start and praying he'd done it right. They were going home. It would be okay. Rains and Phillips, they could figure this out. Steve just had to get them home. It would be okay.

The spell activated and Steve felt the now-familiar twisting of the world around him and rough thump onto a stone floor. There was a gasp of surprise followed by the sound of shattering porcelain and Steve looked up. Nurse Rains. He did it. They made it home.

"Help," he said, getting shakily to his feet. "They…I don't…I need…" The fear he had shoved away was back with a vengeance now and it was crushing the air out of his chest again. His blue eyes locked onto her green ones pleadingly.

"Help," he whispered.

Well, that certainly didn't go well. Tune in Monday to see what happens next! In the meantime, I'd love it if you'd drop me a note and let me know what you think.