Detective Mike Hanson smiled as he watched the medical examiner lift the crime scene tape to allow his partner, Detective Jo Martinez, onto the crime scene. If it had been just one month earlier, the shamelessly simultaneous arrival of his partner and the medical examiner would have gotten on his nerves, much as it had since the first case the pair had worked together. Martinez was his partner, damn it, and it had been starting to really anger Hanson that she almost never acted like it. An inter-departmental transfer form had been sitting in the top drawer of his desk at the time, and he had been within hours of putting it on her desk.

A month ago.

Before his narrow-minded view of the world disappeared in the blink of an eye.

It would have been bad enough to find out that the Guardians existed. Or vampires. Or dragons. But to not only find out that all of those things existed, but that his partner's unofficial 'partner' was a 236 year old immortal? It was an earth-shattering shift in perspective.

Once the dust settled, though, it wasn't hard to see that there were much bigger problems out there than Jo splitting her time between him and Henry Morgan. Plus...he made her happy. Whether they were ready to make their relationship 'public' or not, Henry Morgan made his partner happy. And when push came to shove, that was all that really mattered. "Sorry to drag you guys away from dinner," Hanson told Jo.

"S'alright," said Jo. "Abe's keeping it warm for us. What do we have?"

"Four vics," Hanson replied. "Looks to me like carbon monoxide poisoning, but..."

A new voice jumped into the conversation, cutting Hanson off. "Au contraire," Lucas insisted, "I have every reason to believe that the victims were poisoned, then the killer created a carbon monoxide-rich environment to mask his crime."

Jo raised a curious eyebrow at Lucas' theory. "That's a lot of work to put into just on the cover-up."

"If there's a cover-up," Hanson countered, clearly skeptical of the younger man's theory.

"Why not just torch the place?" Jo then asked.

"Because," Henry insisted, his eyes never looking up from his examination of the youngest victim, "our killer knew the family. Not only did they not want these victims to suffer, but they wanted to make sure that the funerals would be open casket."

Jo caught on almost immediately. "And preserve the property in case they got the house in the will."

Henry nodded, then suddenly cocked his head, as if listening to a voice no one else in the room could hear.

Jo watched the motion with a wary curiousity, unsure of what it meant. "Henry? Everything ok?"

"Lucas," Henry asked his assistant without making contact with the younger man or any of this other co-workers, "can you get these victims back to the lab without me?"

Lucas frowned, annoyed at the idea of having to coordinate a four autopsy night on his own. "I...could..." he began warily, "but...why?"

"A more...pressing matter has been just been brought to my attention," Henry replied, hoping that his friends would catch on to the hidden meaning behind his carefully chosen words.

Henry wasn't disappointed. "You need to go, don't you?" asked Lucas, making an excited, exploding gesture with his hands on the word 'go'.

Jo, Lucas and Hanson closed ranks around Henry, providing as much cover from prying eyes as they could. "That urgent, huh?" asked Jo.

"I wouldn't risk this if it weren't," Henry replied. He looked up at Jo and smiled warmly. "We'll finish dinner when I return?"

"We'd better," Jo agreed with a flirtatious smile of her own. "You still owe me dessert."

Henry's smile grew just the slightest bit wider before he disappeared.

#

"How do you know that name?" Bakshi demanded, his face paling.

Whitehall rolled his eyes, annoyed at his assistant's apparently rapidly fraying emotional control. "Mister. Bakshi," he warned the younger man, "why don't you go over the security footage from this afternoon?" Whitehall then leveled his gaze back at Raina as he continued, "it seems our security measures are not nearly as secure as we would like them to be."

Bakshi sighed with relief, grateful for a productive reason to get out of the room. "Thank you, sir," he replied, turning on his heel and heading to the offices of the soon-to-be-dead head of security.

Raina picked up the conversation when she heard the office's door close behind Bakshi. "Well, it appears that you have heard of the Kree..."

"I have had dealings with them in the past," Whitehall admitted. "My question is how you might have heard of the Kree."

Raina seemed unfazed by the question. "That's not important," she insisted. "What is important is that the Kree have given me the blueprints to a weapon that will bring your enemies to their knees in a matter of seconds. I need the help of your organization to build it."

Whitehall's surroundings changed in the blink of an eye as he traveled from Germany to Tennessee in the blink of an eye. Raina raised her hand, and the room started to glow around them...in a pattern that the HYDRA agent instantly recognized. "Our best scientists couldn't crack this code," he told Raina. "So why should I believe you when you say that you've got this 'all figured out'?"

Raina smiled, creating an expression on her face that shook Whitehall down to the very core of his being. "When you have the collective wisdom of the universe coursing through your being," she explained, "alien weapon blueprints are no more complicated than a child's crayon drawing."

Whitehall tried to sound unimpressed. "Raina, while I'm somewhat impressed by your little 'show' here..."

Black tendrils of smoke left Raina's eyes when she raised her hand, wrapping themselves around Whitehall's neck. "Listen to me, you little worm," Raina declared as the tendrils compressed and started to slowly squeeze the life out of their victim, "this head of HYDRA hasn't been cut off. It has been replaced. If you wish to keep your life, you will answer to me now. Is that clear?"

Whitehall drank in big heaving gulps of air as the tendrils left his neck. He coughed, rolling over and fighting to steady himself as he recovered from Raina's attack. The arrogance that had once filled his soul was gone when his eyes met Raina's once again. "Yes, Mistress," he agreed submissively. "What would you like me to do?"

#

Henry quickly adjusted to his new surroundings...until his eyes fell on the face of a man he never expected to meet in person. "Steve...Steve Rogers?"

Steve frowned as he turned around, trying and failing to place Henry's unfamiliar face. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "Have we met before?"

Henry, in turn, blushed and shook his head, clearly embarrassed as his mind finally recalled the younger man's story. "Forgive me, Captain. I have heard so much about you that I feel like we've met years ago." When Steve's expression grew more quizzical, Henry explained, "my late wife and I met Margaret Carter a few years after the war. She was a dear, dear friend for many years and spoke of you often."

Steve surprised himself when he gasped, his breath still catching in his throat at the mention of his old love. He composed himself quickly. His expression broke into a gracious smile as he offered his hand in greeting. "In that case, any friend of Peggy's..."

"Henry Morgan," Henry introduced himself, shaking Steve's offered hand.

"What are you doing here, Henry?" asked Steve.

Steve's question was lost as Henry's attention went to the man who had 'called' him in the first place. "Master Mùshī," Henry greeted Ryan, "it has been too long."

"That it has, Doc," Ryan agreed. "They keeping you that busy at the 11th?"

"A medical examiner does have a never-ending supply of clients, after all," Henry replied.

Steve raised an eyebrow, his curiosity now piqued. "So you're Doc..." It was then that Henry's comments about Steve's old love finally caught up to him. "How old are you?"

Henry winked at Steve before continuing his conversation with Ryan. "At any rate...how can I be of assistance?"

"We're chasing down a very dangerous set of objects called infinity stones," explained Ryan.

Henry nodded. "End-of-the world sort of thing?"

"More like end of the universe, potentially," Ryan replied.

Henry's eyes went wide. "That is quite the danger," he agreed. "How can I help?"

"I think we should try a locator spell," Castle proposed to the group. "The problem is...we don't even know if any of the stones are still on this planet."

"Of course," said Henry. Ryan and Henry both nodded, immediately understanding Henry's place in Castle's idea.

However, the three men seemed to be in the minority. "How can Henr...Doc help with the locator spell?" asked Steve.

"Doc is a conduit for the chi that fuels our abilities," Ryan explained.

Unable to resist the temptation, Henry nudged Steve. "It's been keeping me alive for 200 years," he admitted, answering the younger man's earlier question.

Steve's eyes widened as he found himself unable to not stare. "You're immortal?" he asked. Henry nodded. "Did Peggy know?"

Henry and Castle both ignored the question. "If we add him into the spell it just might have enough power behind it to find the stones," Castle explained to the group.

"What else do you need?" asked Fallon.

Castle turned to his fellow Guardians. "This spell's gonna take all of us to make it work." As the other three Guardians in the conversation nodded, Castle turned to the rest of the group. "Thor, we could use Mjölnir's ability to find mystical objects..."

"Of course," Thor agreed, handing the hammer to Esposito.

Castle nodded in a brief gesture of appreciation. "There's just one more thing that we'll need to make this work." Hesitating only for the briefest of moments, Castle turned to Eric. "Doctor Selvig, you're the only one among us who's had close contact with one of the infinity stones..."

"Two, actually," Eric volunteered.

"Eric is this world's leading expert on the Tesseract," agreed Jane.

"That only makes you more important, sir," said Castle. "In fact, I believe you might be the key to helping us find the stones. If you'd be willing to help us."

Eric drew in a nervous breath and let it out, looking to Jane and Thor for support and reassurance. When Thor nodded and Jane squeezed his hand, It seemed to strengthen Eric enough to help him come to a decision. "What do you need me to do?"

#

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