Coulson stood quietly in the doorway, respecting the scene before him. The stillness in the medical lab, surrounded by the muted cacophony of sounds outside of the lab, seemed to punctuate the impression of time standing still in the small space. Which only accentuated the study in contrasts of the scene in front of him.

Thor never looked up from his vigil at Jane's bedside. "Are you in need of my assistance, son of Coul?"

Coulson shook his head. "I just...I never thought I would see you like this, Thor."

"Neither did I," Thor agreed sadly.

It was obvious to Coulson that Thor was not talking about the casual 'Earth clothes' that he was wearing. "She's going to be okay," he assured the Asgardian.

Thor gently squeezed his beloved's hand. "I wish I could share that confidence," he admitted. "After she survived the Aether I though my days of putting her in danger were over..."

"This is not your fault," Coulson insisted. "This is part of her destiny. Just like it's part of Skye's."

Thor sighed, accepting the truth in Coulson's words but finding no comfort in them. And yet, when the Asgardian considered who was speaking, the difference between a being's true destiny and their 'perceived' destiny sparked a curious set of thoughts that Thor could no longer ignore. "What of your destiny?" asked Thor, finally looking the younger man in the eye. "Evidently it was not to die at my brother's hand."

"No," countered Coulson, "I did die that day. I just didn't stay dead."

Thor's brow furrowed in confusion at Coulson's answer. "How did you not stay dead?"

"Nick Fury," Coulson explained. "He had a drug created from the blood of a Kree warrior. It...resurrected me."

"I have heard of such potions," Thor agreed. "But I have also heard that those potions rarely bring a being back as they were at the moment of their death. Certainly not..."

A small smile crept across Coulson's face. "This potion was no different. If I had only the potion to my credit I might not have come back with my sanity, either."

"So what else was done to bring you back?" asked Thor.

"It wasn't what was done to bring me back," Coulson explained. "It was what happened after I returned." Thor nodded, encouraging Coulson to continue his tale. "I heard you were there at the battle on the George Washington Bridge...when your brother tried to take a different stone of power?"

Thor nodded again in agreement with Coulson's half-question. "Aye."

"So you've fought alongside the Guardians' army?" asked Coulson.

"I have," Thor replied...then gasped when Coulson's eyes flashed with an orange halo that felt oddly familiar. "The Guardians' army...had eyes similar to yours..."

Coulson blushed. "I supposed you could say I've been offered something of a permanent position."

Thor considered everything that he remembered about the Guardian army, then tried to take those memories and integrate them with what he knew about the 'son of Coul' as well as the man's reputation among those who knew him better than Thor did. "That army was richly blessed with great physical...gifts," said Thor. "But they seemed to work as a collective. You..."

"Work in partnership with the being that creates the army," Coulson explained, his smile showing his own amazement with his standing 'state of being'. "I stay me. I just have more...weapons...at my disposal."

Thor tried to imagine the man sitting in front of him fighting with the 'weapons' of the Guardians' army. The resulting mental picture made him smile as he remembered the loyalty, ferocity and bravery of his friends back on Asgard. "I look forward to one day fighting by your side...warrior son of Coul."

#

"I'm coming with you."

Castle shook his head at Tony Stark's definitive declaration. "Oooo-kay...to where?"

"To Sokovia. I'm coming with you."

Castle eyed Stark warily. "Why..."

"Let him talk," Esposito declared impatiently. Castle, in turn, deferred to the billionaire with a wave of his hand.

Stark ran the length of the training lab, grabbing two versions of the Iron Man glove off of a work bench before bringing them back the the couple that was eyeing him warily. "One of these things is not like the other," he declared as he handed the gloves to Beckett.

Her eyebrow raised in a curious glare, Beckett weighed the two gloves against each other, opening her senses so she could make a full comparison of the two weapons. It didn't take her long to come to a decision. "They're running on different frequencies," she concluded before handing the gloves back to Stark.

Stark nodded. "The glove on your right has one of my standard repulsor rays in it. The glove on the left, though, was designed with the help of Master Xiānzhī over there."

Esposito picked up the explanation. "You guys ever hear of the concept of resonant frequencies?"

Castle jumped up eagerly, doing everything short of raising his hand in the air. "That's the frequency an object vibrates at, right? It's the reason a singer can use their voice to break a wine glass?"

"Exactly," Stark agreed. He gestured to Esposito, who punched a series of numbers into a nearby computer. Stark turned to Banner, who wheeled a cinder block target into place. He then pulled out a gun and fired at the cinder block.

Castle gawked at the cinder blocks as the bullet dropped away with a very familiar and very harmless PING. "You've replicated my energy shields," he told Stark.

Stark nodded. "Still working on the portability problem, though, so you're not out of business just yet," he teased with a wink. He then turned to Beckett, who was still holding his two gloves. "Mistress Lièrén," Stark asked Beckett, "please hand me the glove in your right hand."

Beckett handed Stark the glove. Stark put the glove on his hand, aimed the repulsor, and fired at the shield...which absorbed the energy in a flash of blue light. "This shield isn't 'exactly' the same as Master Sìfāng's," Stark explained. "It's running on the frequency that HYDRA's been using to protect Loki's scepter. Now, Mistress Lièrén, please hand me my other glove." Beckett handed Stark the second glove, and Stark performed the necessary replacement. He then powered up the repulsor, aimed and fired.

The entire room seemed to jump and duck at the same time as the cinder block exploded. Castle coughed even as he gawked at the place where the target had once stood. "You did it..."

Stark glanced over at Esposito. "We did it," he insisted.

The Guardians seemed to come to a collective, unanimous decision. Castle gave voice to it. "Okay," he told Stark. "Suit up. You're coming with us to Sokovia."

#

Among the massive bank of security cameras, Daniel Bakshi found his attention focused on a single monitor. That monitor wasn't showing the current situation in their building in Germany; rather, it was showing footage of a different HYDRA installation. Bakshi kept watching, then rewinding the same twenty seconds of footage. Every fiber of the man's being was telling him that there was something going on above and beyond what the tape was telling him.

He just couldn't see what it was.

Bakshi's 'boss' stepped over the decaying corpse that was blocking the doorway of the security office, not letting petty discomforts get in the way of progress. "Mister Bakshi," Whitehall greeted his assistant. "You believe you've found something?"

"I've found an anomaly," Bakshi clarified. "As to what that anomaly is..." He invited Whitehall to lean in and study the monitor footage more closely. "This footage just came in from Sokovia. Their security chief swears that the footage is unedited and that their system could not have been hacked. And yet take a look at this."

Whitehall watched the video, mostly unimpressed...until he saw what had been keeping Bakshi's attention for the better part of half an hour. "You're sure this is unedited footage?"

"I ran my own set of tests to verify what Sokovia had told me, sir," replied Bakshi. "This footage has not been edited by any conventional digital means..."

"What about unconventional means?"

Both Whitehall and Bakshi felt a chill go through the room at the sound of Raina's voice behind them. "Unconventional means?" asked Bakshi.

"Allow me, gentlemen," Raina replied. She crossed the short length of the room and nudged her way in between the two men. Raina then held her hand in front of the monitor. Black smoke poured from her palms, sinking between the cracks in the computer system.

The monitor shorted to black...and came back to life with a very different image. "Who are they?" Whitehall asked of the three new people whose faces appeared on the screen.

Raina knew exactly who those people were. "Look in your records for any and all information about Skye's father. Then look in SHIELD's records for any references to a group called the Guardians of Shangri La."

Bakshi frowned at the mention of SHIELD. "I've been over those records a thousand times," he countered. "There's never been any mention of..."

"It will be there now," Raina declared. "Once you truly know the face of your enemy, you will understand why the weapon must be completed as soon as possible. And that the scepter must be protected at all costs."

Bakshi's face paled as he connected Raina's words to the location that was being shown on the monitors...and what was being stored at that location. "The scepter, sir..."

Whitehall turned to Raina, his mind recalling the instant trip he had taken with the woman earlier. "Mistress, how soon can we get to Sokovia?"