I was really worried this chapter would take way longer so I'm a little pumped right now *pats self on the back* lol
Now that I'm done being a total nerd. This one was a bit out of my comfort zone but I really enjoyed the experience. Hope you guys do too.

Ultramatrix Bearer as always I appreciate your regular reviews! Lowenweiss and Milkshake and Cookies thank you as well!

Guest: You posted a review so quickly after that preview haha you warm my soul. Thank you for the feedback. I did see Wandavision. I feel like the show was controversial for a lot of people but I really enjoyed it. I love Darcy and I mean...Kat Dennings can do no wrong ...I am really interested to see if they keep her in the MCU. Fingers crossed. I personally wouldn't have/am not taking the Darcy in STEM route but frankly, I'm just happy that they are keeping her around. What did you think?

Katie MacAlpine: Don't apologize for the rant lol we all gotta do it. Thanks for the review!

Sweetypie15: Thank you so much for your feedback. Honestly, I felt a little weird not posting a full chapter, so I get where you're coming from. It makes me so happy that you check in regularly - I will definitely keep you in mind as I try to update quicker! This Little World is Getting Smaller is kinda wrapping up but I am working on a sequel as I write this one. So even when this story ends, I think you can expect the sequel to be up in a similar amount of time as it takes me to update chapters. (If that makes sense?)

Have you guys been following the original characters easily enough? Or should I put a list of their names and descriptions on my profile?

As always I am looking forward to hearing what y'all think! Hope you are staying safe and healthy.

Both Sides Now

In the top tiers of Avengers' Tower, at a centralized location, was Command and Control. A large semi-circle of stations and equipment had been strategically designed and dedicated very specifically to high-profile, all-hands-on-deck Avengers' emergencies. Tony Stark had once likened it to NASA but 'Bigger, Better, and Richer all around,' and while the man was prone to hubris no one could really deny him that. From the doorway where two armed guards stood watch at all times, rows and rows of these stations led down to an unmarked, highly secured room in the middle of the semi-circle. This room was the situation room, around which everything else revolved. Outside of this room, lower clearance agents and staff worked tediously on randomized projects and leads to which they had no context. They simply received their orders as directed by the situation room and set to work. But for those who were so privileged, stepping through those doors was to step inside the neural network of the Avengers Organization.

Within the outer sphere of Command and Control there was a quiet sense of urgency, only amplified by the harried paces and rigid facial expressions of the Avengers and high clearance agents that brushed past them to get in and out of that room. Inside those doors, Agent Bennett held the floor.

"Alright, alright, look alive everybody!" Bennett clapped his hands and called the situation room to order. "Herrera get me my timeline – we need to rehash everything from the ground up. If these guys have so much as sneezed in the wrong direction I wanna know about it."

TAC Alpha and Bravo were in motion. The Avengers too. A handful of highly vetted Stark personnel were manning a few of the more complex pieces of Stark tech while Tony, Jarvis, and Sam scanned the city from above. Behind Agent Bennett was the shadow of Barnes' former self – the calculated eyes of the Winter Soldier – who, like everyone else in the room, had gotten there too late.

Captain America and Thor were whispering to each other in the corner. Bruce Banner was next to them, listening in. The Black Widow had stepped out to make a call. There was no sign of Hawkeye which was good for the Avengers and bad for everyone else.

The clock was counting down – to what they had no clue – but they knew the more time that passed the worse it looked for Darcy. No matter the result, the fallout would be unacceptable.

In front of Bucky was a hologram map of the city adjusting itself with minute-by-minute satellite images of the attack and how it unfolded. On the wall in front of that, was a holoscreen with the last known sighting of Darcy Lewis pulled from the iPhone of a teenager who had witnessed the event. Terror was the last thing her face registered before it was obscured by a black hood. Underneath her image was a scrolling list of faces and names of known Hydra agents and the likeliness of their involvement.

Most insidious of them all was the man who had grabbed Darcy by the hair. The man who had covered her face and shoved her into an unmarked van. The man who had haunted her since that day she was ambushed in Stark's car. The only man Bucky had ever hated more than himself. Brock Rumlow. Alias: Crossbones. Former Agent of Shield. Former STRIKE Commander. Former handler of The Winter Soldier. Previously thought to be deceased. Double Agent. Enhanced.

Herrera made his way to the front of the room as ordered, calling the attention of all the necessary people.

"Alright, so here we have incident one, codename: Devil Baby Driver. Hydra's first point of contact with Darcy Lewis was in an incident on the byway heading northbound toward the Avenger's Compound. We don't believe that was Miss Lewis's destination at the time," he said pointing to a blue dot on the map as the hologram adjusted to show the location of interest.

"We believe that she had a tail on her since she left the tower, though our video record starts here."

The occupants of the room turned their attention to the holoscreen on Hererra's left where a security camera obtained from a Dairy Queen parking lot had captured the moment Tony and Darcy arrived at the establishment.

Another car pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later. Its driver parked without exiting his vehicle. They watched as Tony exited the driver's side of the Tesla, activated the Iron Man suit, and left. They watched Darcy pull out of the parking lot. Watched the second vehicle follow.

Herrera stopped the video, asking Jarvis if he could please enhance the face of the driver in the second vehicle. The man was unfamiliar to most of the team when the footage had first been uncovered. But now, after months of trying to get on top of Hydra's movements, everyone in the room knew exactly who he was. Robbie Fleckman. No known aliases. No ascertainable background information. Someone had gone through and made sure his identity had been wiped. Until this video, he was a ghost. His behavior was erratic and sloppy. In Barnes' professional opinion, the guy was a rookie with powerful friends.

From there, the video footage cut out. Herrera walked the team through Darcy's movements via the location tracker logged on the Tesla's computer. They watched the blue dot move along the byway, watched as Jarvis simulated the most probable movements of the Hydra team with a series of red dots that manifested along the map. Closing in on Darcy with the assistance of Fleckman's intel.

"That's when Agent Barton makes contact with Lewis," Herrera says, hitting a button on his tablet. Clint's voice flooded the situation room speakers, aggravated at Darcy for fleeing the tower, lecturing her about her mandatory self-defense training. They heard Darcy's lighthearted brush off.

"Then we have the EMP," Herrera interrupted. He swiped at the map in front of him, gesturing to a graphic reconfiguration of the blast radius provided by Jarvis. "Here, the location tracker is disrupted on the Tesla," Herrera says. The blue dot flutters and disappears.

The phone recording cut out, static sounded, and then Jarvis reconnected the call. Clint's voice was broken up by the interference, but the team could hear him clearly enough asking Darcy what was going on. Her silence rung louder than the static that filled the room.

Then the enhanced speakers on the Tesla picked up a haunting sound. Boots on the pavement. Radio chatter. Men's voices raised in practiced communication. High precision approach from behind. Clint heard it then. The team heard it now.

On the recording, Clint's muffled voice was grim in the background, but the room understood him clearly when he told her to hold on.

"Now, on our end, Falcon and Hawkeye deployed by way of Quinjet from the tower to Lewis's location. Coordinates were supplied by Jarvis at the time. We have an index of their movement in the activity log located in Darcy's incident file for anyone that needs detailed coordinates and time stamps for their record. You can find record of disciplinary action for protocol violation located there as well. On Lewis's end, we were able to salvage some dashcam video."

The team watched as the dash camera caught the shockwave from the EMP. Watched it rock the car as the vehicle made its way down the road. They saw the world from Darcy's perspective as she skidded across the highway and crashed just short of a small tree. Saw the cracked glass of the windshield and a tangle of brown hair as Darcy's head presumably slammed down on the steering wheel.

"We can assume that this is around the time that Lewis makes contact with Rumlow," Herrera continued. "In the minutes that it takes Falcon and Hawkeye to touch down. We know from Lewis's debrief that it was Rumlow who took point on apprehending her. She stabbed him in the neck with this pen."

Herrera gestured to a hologram of Darcy's makeshift weapon, the actual pen locked away in evidence collection after DNA had been obtained and sent to the labs.

"Rumlow reportedly drops her, at which point Lewis runs into the woods. She claims she doesn't remember much more about the exchange which we attribute quite justifiably to adrenaline. But we do know that no one discharged their weapon in the attempt to apprehend her, which we now can confirm means they most likely needed her alive and intended to keep her that way."

The door to the situation room slid open as Sam made his way back in from the heat, wings still strapped to his back. He accepted a glass of water from one of the Stark techs before coming to a stop next to Wanda, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head at Cap before nodding for Herrera to continue.

"Dashcam footage is grainy from here on out, but we know that the initial team Hydra sent was comprised of six men. Led by Rumlow. We have since identified four of them." He swiped at the holoscreen and magnified the faces of the agents in question. "After Rumlow, we have Jack Rollins. I think most of us are familiar with Rollins at this point. Double Agent. Former STRIKE Alpha. He has close personal ties with Rumlow."

At this, Herrera nodded an acknowledgment at Cap who kept his face carefully blank at the mention of his former team.

"Next up, is Jared Kurtz. Our contacts across the pond say he's kicked up some trouble in London and Bruges. We also have record of an incident he caused in Morocco that ended in high civilian casualties. And, as I mentioned before, we have Robbie Fleckman. We do not have sufficient intel on the other two operatives at this time. What we do know is that one is estimated at 5'11" and the other at about 6'2". The shorter is estimated to weigh in at about 180-190 lbs. The taller most likely weighs in at 270-290 lbs. We do not have voice recognition on either of them at this time. Both are highly skilled. Knowing what we do about Rumlow, we can assume he handpicked them and made sure they were up to his standard."

Herrera deferred to Wilson then, for his account of events once he and Barton arrived on the scene.

"Upon arrival, I engaged Hydra first exiting the quinjet by way of the loading bay. I dispatched two operatives from above. You can refer to the incident debrief for confirmed kills. But judging from the altercation, I would say it's highly unlikely that these operatives were part of the unit that initiated the attack on Lewis."

Bennett piped in quietly to agree. "We believe the first unit followed Rumlow into the trees to pursue Darcy. The men you engaged were a contingency unit."

"Barton dispatched the remaining Hydra operatives. We made our way into the trees. It wasn't long before we discovered Darcy. The exact timestamp can be found in my debrief. Lewis had climbed a tree. Thinking we were Hydra, she attacked me from above. Once we contained Lewis and brought her up to speed, I assessed and treated her injuries."

Sam thought back to the moment they found Darcy. Remembered the shards of glass still embedded in her skin, and the hematoma that had formed on her forehead. He remembered her pupils blown wide and dilated from both her concussion and her fight response which had been in overdrive.

"When we reached the road, observing the influx of Hydra operatives, I chose to stay with Barton and Lewis. Our goal was extraction. Lewis was injured. We were outnumbered. The wings would have drawn unnecessary attention."

Herrera cut in. "At this point, Jarvis sounds the Alarm at Avenger's Tower. Cap, Widow, and Iron Man deploy. Agent Hill calls in SHIELD."

Sam nodded at Herrera. "The quinjet was surrounded. We made a judgment call and reclaimed the Tesla."

"Barton and Wilson dispatch an estimated 20 pursuing operatives, while Lewis is at the wheel. The Avengers' detail arrives on the scene. Cap and Widow dispatch a sum of fifteen. Iron Man rounds up a handful of stragglers and reclaims the jet. All operatives were released into SHIELD custody on arrival. Wilson is injured during the altercation; he catches a chopper out under a SHIELD medevac team. Lewis is brought in and treated here at the tower under the supervision of Doctors Cho and Banner."

Steve remembered the day well. Had thought about it often in the aftermath and all that would follow. Many a day since, after going to bed with a head full of worries and missions, and a night full of heavy forceful rest, he would wake up and in his mind's eye, Steve would see Darcy. He'd worry about her until other worries got in the way and then he trusted Bucky and Bennett and the TAC teams to worry for him. Over and over and over the cycle continued.

He had sat there, afterward in the infirmary, waiting for Sam to open his eyes.

There was a stack of paperwork sitting on the table next to Wilson's bed, the formal documentation of the riot act that he was about to read his second rogue operative. His muscles barely felt the exertion from earlier. It had been an easy run for him, let alone the group of Avengers together. It had only been a rough start because Son of Wil and the Hawkass had decided to fuck around with protocol when Darcy's life was on the line. If they had done things the right way, her rescue would have been a lot cleaner and a lot more streamlined. No driving the getaway car for their concussed non-combatant friend. No running around with gaping wounds in her arms, and bloody cuts on her face, while Hydra agents shot at her from behind and these two jackasses played cowboy. He saw her face when Natasha pried her out of that car. Hell, he saw her face through the windshield of the car when he was still on the damn motorcycle.

Steve knew that Darcy had been through several death-defying incidents as a result of her proximity to Thor, but the purpose of bringing her into the fold (aside from the obvious of her being Jane's assistant and Jane including her in her contract...) was to contain the risk to her well-being. But they were supposed to spare her any more exposure to those events. At the bare minimum.

That's not what Wilson and Barton did though. Steve knew because her face told him everything he needed to know. Darcy was in terror. She thought she was going to die that day. She very well could have died. It was a damn miracle that she hadn't from Clint's debrief. She'd had more guns trained on her in that moment than she'd seen guns in her damn life. Hell, Steve couldn't even say for certain that Darcy had ever seen a gun in person before. It was unacceptable.

He'd pulled Barton from all active operations for a month (barring any more alien invasions) as a result of his actions. And it really pained him to do it because to be frank, they needed the man's expertise. He was an invaluable asset to a well-oiled machine, and it really pissed Steve off that the guy made such a rookie mistake when the stakes were so high. He required that Clint continue to train Darcy in self-defense, but other than that...his best gun was on goddamn desk duty.

Sam shifted in the bed, drugs finally wearing off and allowing him to fully wake. He groaned and tried to stretch but a nurse came along and told him to keep still. She nodded kindly at Steve as he moved out of her way so she could check his friend's vitals.

"How long was I out?" Sam's voice was gravel, but his eyes were surprisingly clear.

"Just a few hours," Steve said.

"Huh, that's not too bad. Am I gonna live?" He asked with an ironic twist of his lips.

"Remains to be seen," Steve quipped darkly. "You plan on pulling anymore cowboy shit with the people under our protection?"

Sam's smile fell a bit at that. "Is she alright?"

Steve waited for the nurse to make her exit before he continued.

"Physically? She's a hell of a lot better than you are right now."

"Mentally?"

"I don't know Sam. She's not talking. But you're the counselor...think you could venture a guess?"

Sam sighed.

"You could've died out there, Wilson."

"I know."

"Do you? This could've been a routine op. Cut and dry. Had you sounded the alarm it would've maybe added a minute to how quickly we assembled. But maybe not. Most of us have quicker response times than the two of you because of our enhancements. So maybe instead of a five-minute response time... maybe we would've made it there in four. Ever consider that?"

Sam was quiet. Steve took a breath to collect himself.

"I legally need to stop talking about it here," he said softly to Sam. "You need to heal. I just stopped in to make sure you were still on the up and up, and to drop off your paperwork."

Sam looked over at the pile with a face full of dread. "It's bigger than usual," he quipped.

"Well, apparently recklessness makes it grow larger."

Sam smirked.

"You two are twelve," came a voice from the doorway. Natasha made her way into the room.

"Lookin good there, Wilson," She said in a low voice, nudging his leg. He smiled widely up at her before closing his eyes against the pain in his abdomen. She turned to Cap. "We haven't made any headway on the Hydra operatives that Tony captured. Right now, we have to assume they thought it was Stark that was driving the Tesla."

Sam opened his eyes then to try and pay attention to the conversation. "Then why didn't they just shoot her?" He asked looking between Natasha and Steve.

Steve took a breath, eyes staring into space as he tried to piece together the puzzle without possessing all required parts. "I need to take another look at her file. See if we're missing something."

"I already did," Natasha said, crossing her arms and leaning against Sam's bed. "There was nothing more to look into on that end."

Steve nodded, heading toward the door. He turned back to look at them before he left. "I'll send the nurse in to give you another dose of meds. Get some rest. Report to me for debrief the moment they release you," he said to Sam. Then to Natasha. "I'm gonna head down to Subsection 6, get someone to do a more thoroughly vetted risk assessment on Darcy...maybe get a fresh set of eyes on Hydra."

"Have Agent Bennett do it," Natasha advised him. "I ran a couple operations with him during our SHIELD days. He's thorough."

He'd been livid at how careless the two of them had been with Darcy's safety, but...Steve couldn't claim he'd done any better by her. Not now that she was with the very people he'd tried so hard to protect her from. He wished he could go back to that version of himself, tell him everything he knew now. Give the team the head start they needed, remind himself that keeping Darcy ignorant would not keep her safe.

"The question remains," Bennett said, eyes locking on his Captain's. "Why were their response numbers so high? They deployed how many units of operatives to bring in a defenseless civilian? Yeah, she has powerful connections but at the time she was defenseless, and Hydra flooded the byway with operatives too quickly for it to have been a reaction to Hawkeye and Falcon."

Cap flattened his mouth into a thin line. There was a ping on one of the facial recognition scanners. The possible hit on Darcy's location sent a new flurry of motion over the room. Bennett and Barnes rushed over to the sounding scanner. They watched intently over the shoulder of the Stark employee who nervously interpreted the feedback and rattled off a series of coordinates for a possible match on one of the operatives that had taken Darcy.

Barnes gestured to the leader of TAC Bravo, telling him to deploy two agents to scope out the hit. The group moved around each other seamlessly. Agents deploying. Supervising Officers delegating assignments. Sam had a nervous energy about him, like he was itching to get back out there but a stern look and a shake of the head from Steve kept him inside. There was no point in exhausting essential team members without a strong lead. Banner was looking a little green in the gills and didn't resist when Rogers told him to get some air. Bruce stepped out, telling the group he'd ask Pepper to talk Tony into coming in from the heat. Steve shot him a grateful look; he didn't want to make it an order if he didn't have to...but frankly, he could use Stark's brain.

Maria Hill strode into the room, stopping in front of Steve and handing him a file.

"This is all we could pull from the guy we've got in containment," she said, crossing her arms as he opened the folder.

Steve gave her a flat look and snapped the folder closed.

"It says 'Hail Hydra." His voice was dry.

Her eyes were equally unamused.

"He only says Hail Hydra."

Steve cursed and dropped the file down on the table, rubbing a frustrated hand down his face. Hill didn't react.

"Let me borrow Miss Maximoff; I think she could do some good here."

Steve looked from Hill to Wanda where she sat studying video logs of the event, perfectly capable of doing more if given the opportunity. At the mention of her name, she turned to look at Cap. He nodded his assent. She stood and followed Hill out of the room, an agent quickly filling the space she vacated and picking up where she left off.

He turned his attention back to Agent Herrera who looked cool-headed and patient as ever as if the place wasn't a train wreck of activity. Just as he gestured for the man across the room to continue onto the second incident, a blue light started flashing over the security monitors in the corner, the room was flooded with the sound of an alarm indicating a security breach.

The tower had been in lockdown since Darcy was taken. No one in or out unless they were an Avenger or a TAC Team Agent. All non-essential Stark and Avenger's personnel had been ushered into panic rooms and secure locations under the care and supervision of Happy Hogan. The security alert had been raised to level one. And now, someone was trying to get through the door.

Natasha burst into the room. She barely spared her Captain or anyone else a glance as she made her way to the agents manning the security panel. Leaning over them, she typed a code into the panel transferring the feeds to the larger holoscreens at the front of the room. Then she brought herself to stand between Steve and Thor.

Jane Foster had busted out of her panic room. And she was doing her damndest to bust out of the tower too.

Bennett cussed and snapped his tablet down onto a desk. "Goddamit Foster," He growled as he watched the woman try to blow open a ground-level security door with a makeshift putty explosive. "Someone get their ass down there and detain Foster before she fucking hurts herself, goddammit. Crazy ass bi—" A heavy hand landed on the TAC leader's shoulder.

Bennett turned to face a stern-looking Thor. There was a foot of height between them. Thor easily packed more muscle, and...well...he was the god of thunder. So, Steve felt his respect for Bennett go up substantially when the man didn't so much as flinch in the face of Thor's obvious displeasure. "Take care how you speak of my lady," Thor said gravely. Bennett bit back his ire enough to keep his mouth shut, but he and Thor stared hard at each other for a long moment. Then Thor turned, following Agents Sanders and Cortez out of the room as they scrambled to subdue Jane. "I will retrieve Jane myself."

Bennett muttered unhappily under his breath about the offending scientist and her antics.

"Which brings me to a corresponding incident," Herrera said coughing to cover the humor in his voice. "A risk assessment of known associate, Calamity Jane. The assessment was provided by Agent Bennett after an incident in which Foster and Lewis knowingly entered an active alien war zone (i.e., Lower Manhattan) for research purposes. They did so without clearance, without a security detail, and no strategic plan of attack that we could ascertain."

Barnes thought back to that night when he'd turned from ripping the arms off of one of the alien invaders only to see that tore up old van puttering its way past him – Jane Foster hanging out the passenger side window with some doohickey obscuring her face, Darcy staring owl-eyed back at him like she was wondering what the fuck she was doing there. If it hadn't been so life or death for the two stooges, Bucky would've gotten quite the kick out of it. But as it was, Steve's shield nearly liberated Foster's head from her body, and not much later...Darcy almost got taken out by a rogue alien arm.

Bucky looked at Steve as the sound of Jane's self-righteous shouting, accompanied by Thor's soothing tone, echoed somewhere down the hallway. Steve couldn't help the small quirk of his lips despite the direness of the situation. Foster was a force to be reckoned with.

The day the risk assessment was dropped on the desk in front of him, Steve had a mountain of red tape to navigate post-alien invasion.

Apparently, Barton had used the building across from the police station as a nest at one point, and the city wanted to fine the Avengers for the jurisdictional violation. The Air Force was suing for access to the weapons the Avengers recovered at the scene. SHIELD wanted the Avengers to continue reporting their activity to them despite the Avengers' decision to separate themselves from the organization Post-Hydra Reveal. The Army had stepped on the State Troopers' toes during the conflict, but the state swore up and down that Barnes had been the one directing the soldiers in the effort that violated their jurisdictional agreement...so, they laid the blame at the Avengers' feet. On and on it went and Steve couldn't see past the pounding in his head. He had to laugh at the irony. The serum enhanced him in every way, but he could still get a damn stress headache if enough bureaucratic nonsense got thrown at him at once.

One minute, he was reading over a detailed report on how the Esteemed Senator from Nebraska was convinced Natasha Romanov was a Russian spy... and the next there was a file in front of him with Darcy Lewis's name on it. His head was still resting against his fist when he rolled his eyes up to look at the exasperated face of Agent Bennett.

"Would it be possible to separate Lewis and Foster?" The man's face was very, very serious.

Steve raised his head off his hand, studying the agent before glancing down at the file in front of him. He flipped the cover open and scanned the report.

"I said I needed a full risk assessment for Lewis, and a fresh set of eyes on this new Hydra angle," Steve deadpanned.

Bennett just looked at him, waiting for his Captain to answer his question.

"This is only a report on Jane Foster's risk to Darcy Lewis..." Steve said. Bennett didn't budge. "Which is veritably non-existent."

"That's where you're wrong," Bennett said before inviting himself to sit in the chair across from him. Cap's eyebrows shot up. "Aside from the obvious...Hydra, Fire Breathing Alien Robots, Dark Elves, Thor's brother, etc. Jane Foster is the number one threat to Darcy Lewis. Especially when you consider the fact that the only reason any of the other factors are in play is because of Jane Foster's presence in Darcy's life. It is my professional opinion that Lewis and Foster should be separated."

Steve stared blankly at Bennett.

"No."

"But I—"

"I like how you think Agent Bennett," Steve said. "Romanov was right, you're thorough. But the answer is no."

"I really think—"

"I understand, but no."

"Foster dragged her into the middle of an alien invasion last night. They were running around in their goddamn pajamas til the sun came up. Do you have any idea how many alien combatants I had to intercept to keep Lewis from dying last night while Jane shouted at her about some phasemeter something or other, and Lewis was helping old ladies cross the damn street?" Bennett was slightly breathless as he spoke, running his hand exasperatedly through his hair. He had a crazy look in his eye.

Steve sat back in his seat, studying the other man. "Have you slept yet?"

"No."

"Get some sleep, Bennett."

"I can't sleep until you put someone else on Darcy. You can't close your eyes for a damn second with those two running around. There's always something life-altering underfoot. She is in constant danger. Just this morning, they came back in after the fighting died down. And they didn't go to bed. No. Darcy has a cat now, Cap. Did you know that? She walked into an alien invasion and she walked out with a damn cat. And now they're in the labs and Jane is messing with something that looks suspiciously like a ray gun. A ray gun. I'm freaking out just being down here because I know nobody is watching them."

"Dr. Foster is perfectly competent in her line of work. She's a genius, Bennett. I think Darcy is safe with—"

"Agent Bennett," Jarvis interrupted them from overhead.

Both men paused at the sound. "Yes, Jarvis?"

"You asked me to inform you of any incidents in the labs during your absence."

Bennett stared at Steve with haunted eyes. "Tell me."

"It appears that Dr. Foster's lab is on fire."

Bennett shot up and out of his seat, flying out the door. Steve wasn't far behind him.

When they got to the lab level, everything was calm. Tony was tinkering in his lab. Bruce was studying graphs in his. Techs and assistants meandered calmly in and out of offices and corridors. They stared at Cap and Bennett as though they had grown an extra pair of heads what with the way they tore through the hallway. When the pair burst into Foster's lab, Jane was leaning over a pile of charts that mapped out the stars. Darcy was standing in the corner where they kept their food supply. She was out of breath, holding a fire extinguisher like a weapon. The cabinets, counters, and parts of the floor were completely black and covered in foam. The remains of what had once been a toaster were still smoking on the counter. A lone sprinkler was trickling above the snack station lazily. And nothing else appeared to be out of order.

Catching her breath, Darcy turned to the two men. She smiled at Steve, looking curiously at Bennett who she hadn't met, before raising a hand up in a friendly wave. "Hiya Cap." Her voice was way too chipper for someone who'd gotten no sleep, survived an alien invasion, and put out a rogue toaster fire. "What brings you down here?"

"Jarvis said there was a fire," Steve deadpanned. His hands were spread out in front of him as though to say, 'what the fuck.'

Darcy looked around herself and shrugged. Still holding the fire extinguisher, she looked him dead in the eye and said, "I haven't heard anything, Cap. Must have been a false alarm." Then she smiled widely at the two men completely oblivious to their abject horror. "But thanks for checking in though!"

When they hit the elevator, Bennett turned to stare at his Captain. Steve pursed his lips, mind rolling over the events of the last few minutes.

"We'll consider it."

Foster entered the lab in a violent flurry of motion. Never mind that she stood at all of five foot seven. Never mind that she was far tinier than any of the other occupants of the room. Never mind that the object she carried in her arms was easily two times her height, and probably too heavy for her from the way she leaned to accommodate its pull on her center of gravity.

Bennett flew to the doorway where she was yelling at Thor, stern-faced and about ready to read her the riot act but came to a halt when Steve held up a hand.

"Doctor Foster," Steve said patiently, despite his exasperation. "Can you please explain to me what you were doing trying to bust open the doors to my tower?"

Huffing like a bull ready to charge, Jane turned to redirect her anger from Thor to Steve when she was cut off.

"I believe those doors belong to me, not you, Capsicle," Tony said airily as he breezed past Foster and Thor to come stand by Steve's side. "Ooh good choice, Foster. I had not expected the Molecular Negatizer to enter the game until much later."

Jane opened her mouth but in typical Stark fashion, Tony decided he wasn't done speaking yet. "Did you work out the kinks with the—"

"Yes," she hissed at him, glancing nervously at Steve and Thor before gesturing for the billionaire to kindly shut the fuck up.

"Well, that's good, we wouldn't want to accidentally rip apart the wrong person's molecular structure now, would we?"

Jane's lips became thinner as he spoke, her fist tightening around the metal death rod that she had been hell-bent on carrying out into public. Stark waved his hand dismissively.

"How's the toaster?"

"We got a new one."

"Well, that's what my unlimited funding is here for." He clapped his hands together before turning to everyone. "Science, folks. Gotta love it."

Jane took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "She's out there somewhere. I'm not gonna sit in some panic room and wait for you guys to get your shit together. You were the ones that lost her in the first place."

Tony opened his mouth to quip something back at her but closed it, eyes sweeping over the organized chaos of the room around him before he brought them back to settle on Jane.

"We did. But Lewis... Darcy...I don't know how to explain it Foster...she's gonna be okay. Maybe not right away. But we are gonna find her. And we are gonna bring her home. We are gonna put her in a nice little protective bubble and she's gonna hate us for all of eternity for stifling her freedoms but...she's gonna be okay..."

"We already did that," Bucky said suddenly from behind. Stark's face was grave when he looked back at Barnes.

"I know."

"And now Hydra has Darcy," Jane said, her anger was still simmering there beneath the surface. When Jane took the liberty to cry quiet frustrated tears no one could blame her. If they didn't have so much to keep them busy, they probably would have been crying too.

"How about..." Steve started slowly as the scientist pulled herself together. "How about you put the death stick away in the labs?"

Jane glared but Steve held up his hands peaceably.

"And then you can help fill us in on what Darcy understands about your research. Maybe having a more in-depth understanding of her knowledge in your subject area will help us ascertain a motive...after you put the death stick away."

When Jane acquiesced, Steve turned back to Bennett who had moved on from sulking about Jane's presence. He was pouring over a report Reed had brought over to him. Bucky was talking over a comm to TAC Teams Charlie and Delta who had headed the effort to set up traffic stops on all the major roads heading out of the city. Natasha had disappeared once again, following a lead she would tell him about when she deemed it necessary. Herrera was helping a tech navigate a clearance issue when Steve called him back to attention.

"Your timeline, please," he said tiredly.

"Sir, incident two introduced a man called Frank." Herrera's voice reclaimed the necessary attention as he continued to break down the timeline of events leading up to Darcy's abduction. "From Lewis herself, we know that she lost track of where she was late that night. According to her account, coupled with the tracker on her phone," he gestured to the map once again. "we can assume that this is where she first registered that she was being followed. Movement rapidly picks up after she reaches this corner here." He pulled up an image of the street for reference. "Which most likely means she was running. We do not know if this is a coincidence or if Hydra had an active role in cornering her at this location. She was in a largely industrial district, nothing but construction for more than a block."

Sam looked up from an updated intel dump on Hydra's recent activity in the greater New York area, drawn away from his reading at the mention of the incident with Frank. He shared a look with Bucky whose mind was spinning with missing information. He stood from his chair to step out of the room. Steve stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, looking at him in question.

"Gonna call Curtis," he told him before walking out the door.

"After a physical altercation between the Hydra operative and Lewis, a third party entered the equation. A man called Frank Castle. Known Aliases: Pete Castiglioni and The Punisher. Former Lieutenant, USMC. Known vigilante. Previously believed to be deceased. Did a stint at Ryker's before he was busted out. Details are sketchy. Guy's a total ghost. He dispatched the offending Hydra operative. Drove Darcy back to the tower where Sgt. Barnes intercepted them and assisted Darcy back inside. Then he disappeared. He's an unknown factor aside from this. There's no indication that he'll pop back up again, but any more information we can find on Castle could prove to be beneficial. Getting his account of events would be even better."

Barnes was struggling to feel like himself through the fog of the Winter Soldier. Since the events on that rooftop in Queens, there was a part of him that wanted to hide behind a stronger façade. It would make him more efficient in the long run, he told himself. He could feel Steve's eyes burning holes into the back of his head while he worked, looking for signs that he was too compromised to continue. Bucky scoffed internally; they could pull him off this case when his body was cold. He'd only stop looking for Darcy when they laid him in the damn ground. Darcy didn't need her friend Bucky Barnes right now. She needed the Asset. Needed his expertise. Needed his ruthlessness. She was his mission. Hydra would rue the day they molded him into their fist. They would not live to regret snatching his best girl out from under his nose. He'd spend his whole life making it up to her if she let him.

He remembered the night Frank Castle saved her with startling clarity.

A deep apprehension had settled in his gut as he called her again. And it only deepened when he was once again directed to her voicemail. The menu screen of Darcy's movie pick was waiting patiently on Steve's television, but there was no sign of their friend. Steve too had tried to contact her, to no avail. Sam was watching them curiously, trying to put together what the big deal was. Feeling like there was more of a story there than either of the men were letting on.

Curtis Hoyle, Sam's buddy from the VA, a former Navy Corpsman who had come around a few times, was sitting on the couch studying the group curiously. They switched to the news at some point. It played quietly in the background while the group shot the shit and waited for Darcy to reappear.

If Steve kept glancing at the clock, and Bucky asked Jarvis to let him know when Darcy returned, no one paid it any mind. She was a grown woman. She'd probably gotten busy or forgotten about their plans. Never mind the fact that she hadn't forgotten a single movie night since the tradition began. Never mind that she had picked the movie for the night and sworn up and down that she needed to be there to see their reactions to this piece of comedy gold. Never mind that they sadly knew Darcy didn't really have a life outside of the tower and it was highly unlikely that she'd miraculously found someone new to hang out with. However horrible it was to think that... all likelihoods pointed to the thought's veracity.

He checked his phone for the millionth time, still no response. But his curiosity peaked when he noted the read receipt at the bottom of the screen. He stared at it and told himself he was overreacting.

The conversation kinda petered out as the others noticed Bucky's continued distraction.

"Buck—" Steve started.

"Fuck it, I'm gonna call her again."

He pressed send. And it rang. And it rang. Then voicemail.

"Jarvis," Bucky snapped. "Where is she?"

"Calm down, Barnes. Girl's gotta live her life too, ya know." Sam told him lightly, trying to calm down his twitchy friend.

Bucky got it...from Sam's eyes, he was being hypervigilant, paranoid. It was a symptom of his PTSD. Hell, maybe that was exactly what was happening right now. He wouldn't put it past himself. But...this was abnormal. Darcy, however erratic she appeared to be as a result of her associations with Foster, Darcy was a dame who followed a routine... if only to keep her sanity in check in a world that was constantly changing up on her.

"I got a feeling about this," Bucky said sternly.

"It appears Miss Lewis has veered outside of her normal travel radius," Jarvis said. "I have uploaded the coordinates to your phone, Sergeant Barnes."

His phone lit up with a trace on Darcy's location, he transferred the image to Steve's TV.

"Barnes, this is too much," Sam said. Curtis was shaking his head in disbelief at the other man's antics. Steve looked a bit uncomfortable, but then he registered the location.

"What the hell is she doing all the way out there?"

The group watched the blue dot glow bright and unassuming in the middle of a heavily industrialized area on the rough side of town, nothing but construction for miles. Sam's face gave way to concern.

Bucky stood, grabbing his boots, and lacing them quickly. "I'm going down there."

He was just about to head out the door when his phone dinged. Darcy.

'I'm so sorry I missed movie night! Something came up. But I promise I'll totally catch the next one!'

He lost a bit of his hot air at that. "She says something came up."

He looked at Steve, who was watching the tracker on his screen. "She's moving."

Sam sighed in resignation that they were apparently doing this now. Curt aptly kept his thoughts to himself, though his raised eyebrow indicated where he stood.

"That dot's going too fast for her to be walking," Sam stated.

Bucky went to type out his response, started to ask her if she had caught a cab somewhere. Then erased it. He closed his phone, only to open it again to ask her if she needed his help with anything. Then deleted that too. Finally, he just settled on 'hope everything's okay.' A read receipt popped up underneath his message. Darcy didn't respond.

His hand was on the doorknob. The three Avengers watched the screen in various states of unease. Curtis was staring intently at his phone, trying to tune out the obvious privacy violation that was happening here.

"Just wait Barnes, if she takes an unexpected turn, we'll check it out. Okay, man?" Sam said, ever the voice of modern reason.

Steve nodded his agreement though his face said he was inevitably gonna side with Bucky on this.

When the dot got closer to the financial district, and subsequently the tower, Bucky's spinning mind won out over his willpower. He went downstairs to meet her.

What he hadn't expected was for her to be in a pickup truck with a random man. His enhanced vision could see the bruises on her face, the blood on her lip, the marks on her throat. He felt the metal click in his arm as he flexed his fist and rotated his shoulder. He tore down the sidewalk, deftly dodging pedestrians, to rip the door off the truck and take Darcy home.

The man who was with Darcy saw him coming. Normally, Bucky would be impressed. But tonight, it was a mark against him. As far as Bucky was concerned, if this guy was skilled enough to see the Winter Soldier coming at him, he was a threat. The man tore out of the truck to confront him right as Bucky reached the passenger side door. Darcy let out a small scream, turning to fight him off and freezing when she recognized his face. He pulled her gently from the cab of the truck, making a note of how she favored her ankle when she got out of the car. He turned to face the man right as he was about to make a grab for his head. Bucky held Darcy behind him with one hand, pulled himself to his full height, and looked down at the bullish man that had threatened his friend. That's when he registered who this person was.

Frank Castle. The guy that served with Curtis in Afghanistan. The dossier in Bucky's mind flipped open on everything he knew about the Punisher. He shouldn't be a threat to Darcy given what he knew about the man's signature and the few things that he had gotten out of Curtis. But less questionable men had surprised Bucky by doing far worse than attacking helpless women in back alleys. Castle had blood on his shirt and a war-hungry look in his eyes. His trigger finger pulled back erratically as though the man was itching to get a gun in his hand. A quick glance told Bucky all the places that Castle was packing. Bucky felt his own chin raise up a little higher, daring the man to make his move.

Then he felt a nervous hand tap his shoulder from behind.

Darcy's voice cut through the haze.

"Hey..." She hesitated. "Um...guys?" Her voice cracked.

"You know this guy, kid?" the Punisher asked her, still staring at the Winter Soldier, refusing to blink. Barnes had to hand it to him, the man lived up to all the talk around his name. A dark part of him – the Soldier part of him – wanted to see how many rounds this guy could go. He curled his fist, feeling his chest expand with a rush of adrenaline.

"Yep. Yeah. Totally. Bucky's a really good friend, Pete." Bucky deflated at that, reeled in that part of himself. Her nerves were shot. Darcy was his mission. The only thing that mattered was taking her home.

"This guy hurt you, doll?"

"What? No. He didn't Bucky." Her hand had nervously curled into the fabric of his shirt like she could hold him back if she needed to.

He took in her words, looking Castle up and down dubiously.

"Got blood on his shirt."

"Not mine. The guy that hurt me... It's his blood. At least I think it is…I never really asked about that part."

At that, Bucky did tear his eyes away from Frank to stare dumbly at Darcy. How in the Sam Hill could she be so— "You didn't think the ask this guy where the blood on his shirt came from before you got in his car?"

"It made sense at the time…?" Her voice got a little smaller, he could see the adrenaline wearing off and the pain settling in. She was flagging.

"Darcy, doll, Jesus Christ." He looked between her and Castle and narrowed his eyes.

Frank was fluctuating between studying Bucky and looking monumentally bored.

"What'd you do with the guy that attacked her?"

"I took care of him," Frank said. He knew what he meant. And while he would kill for more information, he was satisfied that at least for now the threat had been neutralized.

"Get a name?" He asked. Frank shook his head.

"Didn't really fuck around with the chit chat."

He couldn't help but let out a snort at that. Castle was his kind of people.

The other man fished for something in his pocket and tossed it to him.

"Cut that off his tactical gear though," he said. "Thought it might mean something."

He didn't have to look at it. Knew what he'd see and barely spared it a glance before shoving it in his pocket. An octopus with Red Skull's ugly mug as its head.

"It's Hydra," he said, but he didn't bother to elaborate. Castle was a smart man. He'd either figure it out on his own or leave it the hell alone. Neither option was a bad one in Bucky's opinion.

Castle went to take off, but Bucky fished around for a burner he'd grabbed on his way out the door. Programming a number deftly in it before knocking on the window of the truck with his vibranium arm.

He suppressed a smirk when Frank let out an impatient sigh, rolling down the window.

"Look," Bucky started. "Castle." He kept his voice low so no one would overhear the name.

The man in the driver's seat shot his head up to get a good look at Bucky then. Bucky was content to let him drink in his fill, there was nothing Frank could find on him that he didn't want him to know.

"How'd you get that name?" He growled out but Bucky ignored the question. He rested his metal arm on the door.

"Thank you for lookin out for Darcy tonight. If you ever find yourself in a tight spot, give me a call. I'll see what I can do."

"How do you know that name?" Frank repeated.

Bucky gave him a look, then he straightened up and slung his flesh arm around Darcy.

"Take care of yourself, Marine."

Later that night, Darcy fell asleep and Curtis left. Sam told Steve that he expected to be formally read in on what was going on between Hydra and Darcy. Steve told him to get some sleep and he'd fill him in completely when he got back in a few days. After Sam left, Steve made his way down to Stark's lab.

Bucky shot off a text, then set to work on his laptop while Darcy slept. When Natasha and Clint walked through the door, Bucky was lifting Darcy off the couch to take her to Steve's room. Clint scanned over his student with a practiced eye, before groaning and rubbing at his face tiredly with both hands. He went to the kitchen and brewed them a pot of caffeinated mud. Natasha dropped down on the couch and grabbed Bucky's laptop to see what progress he'd made while he waited for them. If Hydra had Darcy in the crosshairs, they would be prepared. And they would make sure as hell that Darcy was prepared too.

Natasha dropped a couple lines in with her old connections who fell away from SHIELD after the Hydra reveal, trying to get her finger on the pulse of the organization's movements. Clint checked out hits on increased activity around any abandoned warehouses or industrial complexes in the tri-state area, trying to get a lock on possible covers for their bases of operations. Bucky spent a bit of time phishing before giving up and drawing up a comprehensive security plan. He'd talk to Cap about adjusting security protocols to accommodate Darcy. When Clint finished pinging any potential targets, he turned his attention to drawing up a detailed plan for Darcy's self-defense regimen. Natasha excused herself to go talk to Stark about a blueprint, mumbling something about her widow's bites and go bags.

It was Natasha who pulled Bucky from his memories. "Yasha," She said softly, placing her hand on his arm.

He looked down at his former student.

"I recovered these from the scene," she said. "I figured it would be best to hand them over to you for safekeeping."

She held out a handful of items. The ring that Tony and Natasha had given Darcy for protection. Her jacket. Her broken phone. Natasha pulled a hat out of her back pocket and set it down on the desk next to him. The Yankees hat she had no doubt purchased to piss him off. Video footage captured the moment she ripped it off her head, looking frantically around for a friendly face as the enemy closed in. There was a feeling, like shrapnel, in his chest. It spread and settled there and made him feel like he'd begun to bleed. He took the items from Natasha, setting the broken phone next to her hat and sliding the ring into his pocket.

Herrera's voice registered in the back of Bucky's mind as he continued to give an overview of events above the din of the room. Agent Cortez came up to him for approval on a request for transfer of resources from the Sherriff's Office which he signed over easily enough. They would take any help that they could get, pulling his mind back together, Bucky paused and called out to the agent. She waited patiently for his instruction.

"Make sure to triple check everyone who comes into contact with this case down there. Hydra is everywhere. Don't make no difference if it's SHIELD or the Sherriff's office, they infiltrate every institution they can. I don't want them to get the drop on us because of an oversight issue."

Cortez nodded and made her way to the door, Johnson followed her out.

He walked up to Steve where he was debriefing with a couple members of TAC Bravo who had chased a dead-end trail to Jersey. Nat wasn't too far behind, typing rapidly on her phone easily skirting around the chaos of the room without so much as looking up.

Steve swiped a frustrated hand through his hair, wishing he could make like Stark and take off at will to look for Darcy. Boots on the ground. That's where Steve wanted to be. But that's not where he was needed. They needed him when it counted, not running on fumes looking for a lead they didn't have. He looked down at the pocket where he saw Bucky slide Darcy's ring, glanced over at her broken phone and that damn Yankees cap, feeling his lips twist downward at the memories it conjured.

"What's got your knickers in a twist, Miss American Pie?" Tony asked Steve absently as he hovered slightly off the floor of the lab, testing a faulty repulsor that had given him trouble during their last mission.

"Darcy was attacked by Hydra tonight."

Stark's eyes shot up to look at Rogers. The man barely registered when the repulsor failed and sent him crashing back to the ground. The suit disassembled around the billionaire. He picked himself up off the ground.

"Where is she?"

"Asleep on my couch," Steve said.

"Jarvis?"

"Locating security footage now, sir," Jarvis murmured quietly in the background.

"This is twice now, Tony. At first, I thought—"

"They were after me," Tony finished for him seriously, hands searching for something to fidget with while they talked. He finally settled on Falcon's wing upgrade before waving for Steve to continue.

"But I don't think this is a coincidence anymore."

Stark paused, turning his head away to gather his thoughts, before resuming his work. "Never seems to be coincidence anymore, Cap. They're miles ahead of us right now. And we don't even know what game they're playing at."

Steve clenched his jaw at the statement. It wasn't untrue but he hated the reminder.

"Do you think Jarvis could get me a comprehensive list of anyone in the tower who has been read in on Darcy's presence or her work with Jane? We need to know where the intel is coming from. They've got to be tracing her somehow. Unless they're just sitting outside day and night waiting for her."

"Jarvis," Tony said.

"Already on it, sir. The list will be downloaded to your tablet, Captain, in one minute and twenty-seven seconds. Sir, I will have your list filed away with your copy of Miss Lewis's dossier."

"Thanks, Jarvis," Steve said. "Tony..."

He waited for the man in front of him to look up from Sam's wings.

"If we have a mole, I want Bucky to take point in flushing them out."

Tony stared at him for a second before looking away and nodding. "Have Romanov help him. I don't want this shit happening in my damn tower. Once everyone's been vetted, we're locking it down."

"I'll raise the alert to level two," Steve agreed.

"Non-essential personnel can work from home or head upstate. I'll have a block of rooms cleared out up there for anyone who doesn't want to commute," Stark said.

"No one in or out until we figure out Hydra's angle. I've got Agent Bennett looking over everything with fresh eyes. He's been watching out for Darcy since the incident with Rumlow on the byway."

Tony leaned against his workbench, staring at Steve, while he clicked a pen he had picked up.

"I'm gonna try to talk Pep into heading to Malibu til this all blows over. Gonna reinforce the RESCUE protocol in her office. I'll let you know when it's done, we can bring Jane and Darcy in on it too."

The doors to the lab slid open as Natasha made her way to the pair, she had one of her widow's bites held loosely in her hand. When she reached them, she tossed it on the table.

"Gonna need eight of these as soon as you can make them. Put them at the top of your list please."

Stark picked up the bite and looked at her curiously.

"Don't ask questions, Stark. The less people who know the better."

With a restraint most of the world didn't know the man had, Tony Stark bit his tongue and did as his friend requested.

"I wanted to talk to you about Darcy," Natasha said to him. He hummed his response, waving for her to get it out while he set to work drawing up plans for the new widow's bites. "I think she needs a weapon. Her taser is too clunky and having to grab for it in her bag during an emergency is inefficient. At first, I thought I could give her my old bites, but I think they're too involved. She needs something streamlined, easy to use, debilitating for an enhanced or a human. Think you could draw something up?"

Tony paused for a second, staring at his suit still laying on the ground. He looked back at the Widow's Bite in front of him before turning and sticking his hands into the hologram suit designer he had to his right. He muttered an acknowledgment before losing himself in his work. Romanov and Rogers left him to his devices.

The next day, Steve found Bennett in his office in Subsection 6.

"What can I do for you, Cap?" The agent asked him, leaning back in his chair.

"Barnes is going to be taking point on Darcy's detail from now on. You'll report to him. He'll report to me. I want a more concerted focus on Lewis after last night."

Steve nodded down at the report Jarvis had supplied Bennett with after the most recent incident. Bennett had taken the night to visit family, after asking Steve for a night of leave. Since Darcy was scheduled to hang out in the tower all night...they hadn't seen any harm in it. And naturally, the moment Bennett was away, the girl was ambushed and almost killed. Or worse.

"Understood," Bennett said grimly. Keeping Darcy alive had become somewhat personal for the younger man. Steve figured, after everything that had happened, he couldn't really blame him.

Cap nodded at Agent Bennett as the man in question came to a stop by his side, tilting his tablet in a way that Steve could observe if he wanted to as TAC Charlie searched a familiar looking van that had been dumped on the turnpike, heading back toward the city from Jersey. Cap kept one eye on TAC Charlie and another on Herrera as he moved onto the third incident in the timeline.

"Lastly, we have Incident Three," Herrera said. "Hydra breaches the tower while the Avengers are away on mission. The Hulk engages the enemy and dispatches all Hydra operatives on the top levels of the tower. Myself, Agent Reed, and Agent Bennett responded to the breach from Subsection 6."

Bennett cussed as the van turned up empty – unsurprised but frustrated, nonetheless. He turned off his feed as TAC Charlie called in a contingency team for a tow. He nodded for a Stark employee to send forensics down to the garage to meet them.

He tucked his tablet under his arm, watching Herrera's reconstruction of the breach on the tower.

Subsection 6 was quiet that night. The Avengers were on a mission. And aside from the Stark Industries security personnel who patrolled the corporate and public floors of the tower, there was no one else roaming the halls.

Bennett had his feet kicked up on his desk. His office was the only one on that level with the light still on. He was sifting through a series of flagged SWIFT network transactions coming out of Belgium. Surface-level they appeared to be associated with a series of ISIL sleeper cells. But there was a pattern of behavior there that made him wonder if this was Hydra hiding their steps. That, coupled with the chatter he'd picked up across a few channels made him feel like he'd stumbled on a lead that he wasn't about to sleep on. The frequency they used held similar signatures to the blanket signal Hydra had utilized to communicate freely amongst themselves while they were still in the shadows, undetected by SHIELD.

He had just circled a series of transactions that broke pattern for later study when the lights cut out, and the silence was pierced by the deep wail of an alarm. He kicked back from the desk, landing on his feet. Took the backup drive from his computer and the pile of documents on his desk and booked it to the safe on the far end of the room. Swiping his gun from his desk drawer and snagging a spare baton someone had left lying around, Bennett made his way through Subsection 6 searching the floor for any stray agents or unwanted activity. The tower's emergency lights flashed overhead, washing the corridors in a cold blue glow. He held his gun out ahead of him, breath quiet, feet steady. No sound came from his boots' heavy tread. He worked systematically. A finely tuned weapon ready to be unleashed. When he'd ascertained that he was, in fact, alone he determined his best course of action would be to make for the situation room to try to get an idea of what was going on.

Darcy was most likely several levels above him.

The Avengers were gone.

His breath moved him forward. His mind worked clinically.

He had to get to Darcy. The elevators would not be operational if the emergency lights were up. He called out to Jarvis and got no response. He felt a grim sense of anticipation settle over him. If they took out Stark's AI, those who remained in the tower were in serious trouble.

Darcy's apartment was a few stories above him. The common area just above that. The labs were a couple stories below him, and he had no tech to help him out. If he couldn't get the security feeds up and running, he'd have to make a judgment call. His gut told him to clear the lab levels first – it wouldn't be the first night she worked late. And he couldn't confirm, but whether it was Hydra or not they'd most likely be hitting from the lower floors. Just from a point of convenience. His brain quickly filtered in that they very well could be coming in from the roof as well. Running over the probabilities of aerial assault, he pushed on further into the depths of the tower.

He'd just kicked in the door to the outer chamber of Command and Control when he came face to face with the barrel of a gun. Bennett's finger flew to the trigger, brain falling quiet as he came face to face with –

Herrera lowered his gun, sighing in relief at the sight of his friend. Reed was behind him, lowering a knife back down to her side.

They all studied each other for a second before nodding and falling into formation. Bennett took command from the middle. Herrera heading the group as their entry man. Reed from behind baton in one hand, knife in the other, watching their sixes as they moved further into the command center, heading for the doors of the situation room.

On Bennett's count, Herrera kicked in the door and rushed in. Bennett followed him in. Reed made her way through the door last. While the men checked the corners and the shadows, she hopped down to the security panel. The room was empty, and it too was flooded in blue light. The alarm was quieter here. The screens in front of her were static, but she didn't let that stop her. Pulling a pin-like object from her back pocket and jamming it into the modem, she held her breath. Reed typed a coded sequence into the keyboard and waited for the feeds to come back online. Nothing.

"I'm gonna have to head down to the corporate floors. They're jamming it manually from below. Without Stark here to override Jarvis's shut down, we're flying completely blind," Reed said.

Bennett was torn. On the one hand, they needed those feeds, but he wasn't about to let his fellow agent go down into the belly of the beast by herself. On the other, he couldn't go on a rogue mission – no matter how pivotal – when he knew he needed to get to Darcy.

Herrera nodded his agreement, tearing open a wall panel and pulling out a stash of hidden weapons. He tossed Reed a rifle and a couple smoke bombs, as well as a zip line gun and a flexible steel cable. He shoved an electric net grenade in his pocket, sticking a knife in his boot and shoving an extra mag in the back of his pants before offering Bennett an extra gun and an electrified pair of staves. Bennett accepted quietly.

"I need to get to Darcy Lewis. If this is Hydra, they're here for her. Reed, I need you to get that security feed up and running but I can't be your backup this time. Darcy could be in one of three locations," he said before pointing to a blueprint of the tower. "Either here in the labs, here on the Avengers' communal floor, or here in her apartment. Those are my best bets and they're all in opposite directions."

"Why Darcy Lewis?" Herrera asked. "The girl with the cat?"

"Our level two lockdown right now was ordered by Cap personally because of this girl," Bennett informed him. "For the record, this isn't me reading you in. When Barnes gets back, he's gonna have to debrief you on everything that happens tonight regarding Darcy. But that's gonna be a big ass question mark until we know she's gotten out of here safely."

Herrera studied him for a second, but Reed was already nodding resolutely.

"I've got the security feed. It'll be easier for me to slip by them undetected if I'm alone. You two split up and find the girl," she said.

Bennett nodded, gripping her shoulder and telling her to be careful. He passed her a comm he'd snagged from upstairs and told her to check in when she was able. When she disappeared, he turned back to Herrera.

"You with me on this?"

"Yeah man," he said.

"You take the labs. If you find Darcy, you report it to me. Shoot her up my way and I'll take her up to the penthouse and initiate RESCUE protocol until backup arrives. Once you clear the labs, head down to Reed. Give her as much back up as you can," Bennett told him. "I'm gonna hit up the common area, then check out the residential halls. I'll keep you updated when I get there."

They barely made it to the out of the situation room when the command center's door burst open and Hydra flooded in. They were two against fifteen. Backs literally against a wall, Herrera dove behind a pair of desks, grabbing Bennett by the back of his shirt and jerking him to the floor just seconds before a hail of gunfire rained down on the place where they once stood.

Bennett held his gun out to the side, firing blindly and listening for impact. Two cries. He pulled back as they returned fire, hissing as a string of bullets narrowly missed his arm. Herrera tossed the electric net grenade up and over his head, satisfied at the groans that sounded above the din that indicated a hit. He peeked up over the table to see they had minimized the threat down to eleven. One operative was trying to disentangle their comrades from the net without getting electrocuted himself. The others were edging closer to the pair of agents and their makeshift shelter.

At the sight of Herrera's head, they fired off a shot. He ducked back down before throwing up his gun and firing a couple more times. Bennett fired with him.

Then, Hydra flipped their table. Herrera ducked and rolled, popping up behind an operative and stabbing him in the back of the neck with the knife he pulled from his boot. Bennett stuck out a leg, bringing an operative down to the ground and tripping up a second. He shot the guy on the ground, before grabbing his baton and swinging at the guy who stumbled. With one hand he took out the man's jaw, then his kneecaps, and with the other, he fired at an operative that looked eager to join his buddy on the ground.

Time blurred. The fight blurred too. But at the end of it, Bennett and Herrera were the last ones standing. An explosion rocked the top floors of the tower, sending the pair flying to the ground. Bennett gasped for breath as he laid there. Ears ringing. Chest seized up from the impact of his fall.

That's when he heard the Hulk. The roar of the green behemoth rocked the building from the penthouse, the vibrations of his rage quaking the foundation of the tower where Bennett and Herrera still laid disoriented. He coughed and rolled over onto his side, shaking Herrera and trying to get up. There was nowhere else for the bad feeling in his gut to sink to. Bennett was flooded with a sense of helplessness. He had a feeling he was too late.

The TAC Alpha leader was pulled from his thoughts by the slamming of the situation room's doors. How in the hell someone had managed to slam them was beyond him, since the damn things were automatic. He turned to confront the person who had managed to set his teeth on edge but fell back when he saw who it was.

Nick Fury strode into the room, glower directed straight at Steve who matched his look with an unintimidated frown.

"You rejecting my calls now, Cap?" His voice was less impressed as he came to stop in front of the collected Avengers.

Steve's look of confusion was brief before he fell back into Cap mode. Squaring his shoulders, he pulled up his phone. "Don't got any calls..."

Fury studied him for a second before a voice cut in, tentatively, from overhead.

"I believe I may be able to clear up some confusion, Captain, Director Fury," Jarvis said.

Steve looked up, as he always did when Jarvis was speaking. Fury, on the other hand, let out an aggravated sigh, looking across the room to the picture of Brock Rumlow, and then to the one of Darcy.

"Go ahead, Jarvis," Steve said.

"My security protocol is coded for situational triage. Director Fury is known to prioritize external interests over the interests of the personal contacts of Avengers and corresponding agents. As the present situation involves an individual of improbable concern to Director Fury, my algorithm fielded his calls and stored them for you to access at a later time. I apologize for the misstep Captain; if you would like to prevent this from happening in the future, I would advise you speak with Sir."

Fury snapped open his mouth to say something to Jarvis, but Steve cut him off.

"Thank you for your honesty, Jarvis. Please try to correct your settings manually to include anyone who may be a beneficial resource as we search for Darcy. Including Director Fury. I'll bring it up with Tony later."

"As you wish, Captain."

"I need to know what that girl knows, Rogers," Fury growled out.

Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Too much and not enough," he said cryptically.

"You better say more than that."

"I don't know what to say, Fury. She's got access to Jane, Bruce, and Tony's work, as you know."

"And?"

"And aside from being in close contact with us on a personal basis, I don't know what more she could possibly give them. The science is enough really – though it's both lucky and unlucky for her that she doesn't understand half of it. She just transcribes and inputs it for later study. She picks up bits and pieces from what she's told me, but nothing to the point of recreation."

"And on a personal level? Living with you all?" Fury leaned forward a bit, invading Cap's space. "From where I'm standing, she knows about the Norway facility. She knows about Puente Antiguo. She was held briefly in London; knows our contact in MI-6 after that incident with the Dark Elves."

"All of which Rumlow knew when he turned," Steve pointed out wryly, jerking his head to the picture of the double agent to their right. "On a personal level...she knows our dietary habits, who works out and when, some sleep patterns, preferred forms of entertainment, inside jokes, etc. Just normal communal living stuff. None of this is necessarily compromising information on its own."

Fury stared at him a minute longer before backing out of his space, adjusting his trench coat with a snap, and turning on his heel.

"Keep me in the goddamn loop, Rogers."

Then he was gone.

Herrera didn't so much as blink. "Reed rallied a few members of the security teams on the lower levels. Once she accessed the source of the interference, she sent a signal to Stark. The two of them worked together to find Jarvis and regain control of the tower's servers. Exact time stamps can be found in the incident debrief files located on your tablets – if you need a clearance override raise your hand and we can get a level 8 agent to authorize you. The Avengers' response times are located there as well, along with Hydra's infiltration points and the locations that the surgical STRIKE teams used for entry."

The debrief the next day was tense, to say the least. There was a giant hole in the side of the tower that a SHIELD tech team patched up haphazardly until Stark could get to repairs. Stark's retroreflective safety net that wrapped around the upper floors of the tower was in disrepair after Darcy Lewis had spent god knows how long floating 90 stories above ground waiting for rescue. The pile of bodies the Hulk had dumped in the upper stairwell had been cleared but the bloodstains and other excrement that had resulted from the fall was still in the process of being removed. SHIELD and Stark crews were at work undoing the damage Hydra inflicted on the tower's structural integrity. Jarvis watched their every move.

Bennett sat tiredly at a long table in Conference Room 2B in the Avenger's personnel offices of Subsection 6. Next to him were Agents Herrera and Reed. Maria Hill and Happy Hogan sat across from them. The agents had been told to hurry up and wait. And wait they did.

It was pushing an hour before the Avengers shoved in. Cap and Stark made their way to the front of the room, Barnes not too far behind them. There was a hard feeling to the room, a steel wall was about to drop down around the tower, and Bennett had a feeling he was about to become a major player in making sure that wall was an impenetrable one.

Thor stood at the back of the room, Banner pulling up a chair in front of him. Romanov dropping down next to Hill with carefully composed eyes. Barton and Wilson crowded themselves into a corner behind Wanda Maximoff. Cap called the room to order.

He had Happy and Hill give their reports on the events as they happened on the lower levels. Stark gave a report on what had been going on internally on the tech side of things, nodding to Reed to get her take on what was happening on the ground level.

After her report was logged, they turned to Herrera. He recounted how he found Reed and in turn how they came into contact with Bennett. Then both Bennett and Herrera gave their account of how things unfolded in Command and Control with Hydra after Reed left them. Banner provided his statement on everything he remembered before Hulk took the wheel, as well as his account of events when he regained the wheel and waited for his team with Darcy in Pepper's wrecked office.

Maximoff reported that there had been no activity upstate that she could ascertain at this time. She and Pepper Potts had been largely ignorant to what was happening to the south of them until the early hours of the morning.

Natasha recounted the phone call with Darcy, as well as the safety procedures she had instructed Darcy to follow in case of an emergency such as the one last night. As far as she could tell, the girl had followed her instructions pretty well if you didn't count the second phone call she placed to Natasha. But since the girl had been floating in the air on the outside of the tower at the time, Romanov sardonically suggested that they should overlook the girl's mistake.

Cap nodded his thanks to everybody for their time before gesturing to Barnes and Bennett.

"I'd like to give the floor to Agent Bennett, who has assembled a list of candidates on short notice for a specialized Tactical Unit dedicated to the protection of Darcy Lewis. I propose – effective immediately – that under Bucky's supervision Bennett and another agent of the Avengers' choosing will head Teams Alpha and Bravo, dedicating all their resources to preventing further attacks on Miss Lewis, and setting a hard offensive line against Hydra's growing threat. If there are no questions..." He glanced around the room and found none. "Bennett, your candidates for TAC Alpha please."

Bennett opened his tablet, swiping up on the screen in the direction of the table in front of him. A small marble-shaped object caught the feed and projected a series of agent profiles in the air for the room to see.

"I'd like to start by proposing Agents Herrera and Reed," Bennett gestured to the man and woman sitting on either side of him. "Herrera was Marine Force Recon. Did three tours in Afghanistan, was in the process of qualifying for SHIELD when the Triskelion fell. We've worked a handful of ops together, and with the events of last night, Hydra has become a bit of a personal issue for him." Someone let out a snort at the massive understatement. Herrera though sat quiet and patient, eyes locked on Bennett as he tried to hide his surprise.

"I'd back that nomination," Barton said from the back of the room, nodding along with Bennett's proposal. "Herrera's good people."

The agent in question nodded his thanks. Bennett continued.

"Agent Reed here is former Army Airborne. She's a sniper. The best we've got down in Subsection 6. She ranges 1700-1900 meters. I'll let you refer to her file for confirmed kills and record of her unredacted reconnaissance missions from the last seven years."

"You'll have to petition the Army for access to my record from the five years prior," she told the group, taking the promotional turn of events in stride.

Steve nodded his understanding, looking to Hill who was already a step ahead of him and typing rapidly into her phone. Barnes studied the sharpshooter sitting next to Bennett.

"You up for a few drills?" He asked her.

"Of course, sir," she said.

"Good. Let's see if we can get your range up to 2,500."

Her eyes widened a bit but nodded along anyway.

"I won't let you down, sir," she said.

"Care for an extra set of eyes?" Barton asked. Barnes glanced at Reed who was torn between looking like she won the lottery and wanted to vomit all over the table. "I'll text you the details," he said to the other man. Reed sat back in her seat.

"Next up, we have Agent Johnson," The hologram flipped to the face of another man that the team recognized but didn't know well. "Johnson was a member of my SHIELD counterterrorism unit. He transferred to specialist work for a time directly before Hydra came out of the shadows. I believe Hill has a more in-depth account of the work he did for Fury during that time. He knows Hydra. He's seen a hell of a lot of their shit. Nothing much surprises him these days, and for some reason, those guys always forget his face. He trained in espionage under Romanov at the academy."

Natasha nodded her confirmation, marking Johnson's profile on her tablet and forwarding her approval to Steve.

"I want to bring in a possible recruit as well," Bennett said and looked around the room to gauge the Avengers' reactions. "Amalia Cortez is an FBI tactical team leader working out of Quantico. She has gone on specialist deployment twice. One time in Fallujah. Another in Mogadishu. She advised on the Paris attacks. And has good ties with Interpol, the Army, and the Air Force. She's the queen of navigating red tape, she's got good connections—"

"But she's not one of ours," Wilson said slowly.

"Not yet," Bennett said. "But I've got a source that says she's been running into some pushback from her higher-ups. She wants to focus on domestic terror. She's submitted a handful of complaints and petitions over the last couple of years claiming her superiors were actively avoiding the livewire of extremism that Hydra is lighting under our asses. The uptick in domestic incidents over the past few years has increased seven-fold and still, they want her team deploying to assist the military instead of focusing on efforts back home."

"You think this is the typical bureaucratic bullshit you always get with these people?" Happy asked as he read over one of the complaints Bennett was able to get access to.

"Or Hydra redirecting resources into proxy wars..." Wanda said, crossing her arms across her abdomen. Natasha quirked an eyebrow, leaning forward onto the table to study Bennett's candidate.

"Think you can convince her to come on board?" She asked the agent.

He looked from Romanov to the profile and took a breath. "I think she's worth the attempt."

"Make it happen," Stark said, waving his hand toward Cortez's profile. "Offer her what you need to, I'll match it for the rest of the unit."

"You'll put her through her paces?" Steve looked at Bucky. The Winter Soldier nodded.

"Yeah, they'll go through the necessary drills."

"Lastly, we have Agent Sanders. Sanders was a SWORD transfer a couple years back. Came highly recommended by SWORD Director Maria Rambeau. He specializes in extraterrestrial phenomena and interspecies negotiation and mediation. A resource Miss Lewis is in dire need of what with the company she keeps," Bennett grumbled the last part underneath his breath much to the amusement of the men and women around him.

Most had witnessed at least one Darcy-related conniption from the man since Cap had assigned him to her case.

"During Lewis's time on Asgard," Herrera's voice was flat as he remembered the day that she had slipped right out from underneath their noses. "TAC Alpha and Bravo hit a Hydra safe house located just west of Yonkers. There we recovered tech, biofeedback data, and a collection of documents containing information about Lewis. I'll refer you to the mission report filed if you need details on primary evidence. In brief overview, we recovered her old medical and dental records most likely obtained from her pediatric and university providers. We also collected several photographs taken of Lewis. Some had been pulled from leaked SHIELD files. Some were more recent. They also had biometric data collected from – we believe – a coffee mug at a local café. All agents were instructed to intercept any items Lewis encountered before and after each exchange. Effectively testing for tampering before consumption and sterilizing or disposing of the item after each use. The ring Stark provided Lewis gave us some advantage in that it scrambled any and all cameras and pieces of technology that focused their attention on Darcy, allowing only those with special clearance to have electronic visual on Lewis while she was in public. We believe this was incredibly effective in scrambling Hydra's trace on their target – though we still do not have a clear understanding of what their intel looked like leading up to Darcy's abduction."

The gathered operatives collectively shifted at the mention of why they were all there, to begin with. Not that any of them had forgotten, but at the acknowledgment from one of their own that they had failed spectacularly. That a girl's life was on the line because of it. Herrera cleared his throat.

"I do want to address one unknown figure that popped up recently at the coffee shop downstairs. An unfamiliar waitress named Laura initiated contact with Lewis last week at 0800 hours. Agent Bennett intercepted and headed off the unwanted exchange as we can see here." He indicated to a photograph taken of Bennett kneeling beside Darcy and the mystery waitress after he 'accidentally knocked' a tray of dishes onto the ground. "Reed was able to obtain these pictures of this individual before she disappeared. Problem is, after running her face through all our known databases, we have found that Laura does not exist. We do not know the role she plays here but for now, we have to assume that she's with Hydra."

The woman in question stared back at them from the holoscreen to Herrera's left. She had black hair, narrow cheekbones, and a glint in her eye that suggested trouble. If there was a green aura around her face, radiating like a halo, they attributed it to a trick of the light. And if there was a snake tattoo on the back of her neck, no one noticed or cared.

"Later that day, Lewis was caught in the middle of another extraterrestrial event. Here we see the moment a man brushes past her as he runs from the conflict," Herrera indicated the space at the bottom of the screen where CCTV shows Darcy stumble from the impact and catch herself. "This girl here," Herrera indicated a little girl in the top right corner of the screen. "Appears from thin air. Lewis engages the girl in accordance with her behavioral profile, trying to take the girl to safety. That's when she gets caught in the grasp of one of the alien aggressors. We see her engage the creature in what we assume is an act of self-defense. It consumes her here—" Herrera paused the footage. Bennett clenched his jaw, taking a moment to look away and collect his aggravation. Every time this girl almost died was a personal affront to the man.

"Barnes appears from the top left corner of the screen, freeing Lewis from the creature. He is quickly joined by Cap, Stark, Barton, and Maximoff. Lewis flees the scene," Herrera said.

Bucky – who had been whispering to Thor about contacting Heimdall for aid – shot his head up at the sound of his name. He scanned over the feed Herrera provided the team, quickly moving over to the front of the room.

"That's not right," He said seriously, taking Herrera's tablet out of his hands and scanning over the intel he had there. "That's not me."

The room fell unnaturally quiet as Barnes worked. "Where did you get this?"

"Buck—" Steve started, kicking off the desk he had been leaning on to come stand by his friend. "That was you, I saw you there."

"Why haven't I seen this footage before?" Barnes snapped looking between Herrera and Bennett.

"There's no excuse, sir," Herrera said seriously. Bennett took a breath and moved forward to see what Barnes was seeing.

"It was an oversight on my part, sir" Bennett said. "I thought you had."

"I hadn't."

"Bucky, you were there. We fought together," Steve protested. His eyebrows had drawn together in confusion. Thor slipped out of the room to find Barton and get his account of the incident.

"No," Barnes insisted. "No, I wasn't. Jarvis, get me the full team debrief record for the conflict last week. Isolate all reports of my movement during the event."

"Yes, sir," Jarvis said.

Barton and Thor slipped back into the room. Barnes threw the report up onto the holoscreen for all to see.

"And get me redwing's video log from this exact timestamp that's reflected in this video here."

Jarvis did as he was instructed, splitting the holoscreen between the two videos with identical time stamps.

"I was clear across the city when this happened," Bucky said grimly.

"Then who the hell is that?" Barton asked.

The room for once had fallen completely still. No one could answer the man's question.