Something they'd done seemed to be working. Rogers was still breathing hard, his heart was still racing, but the pain was fading, he felt more alert, he'd managed to join up the faces of the four medics who were with him to their voices. They sounded happier too, when they'd first started treating him, there'd been a controlled frenzy to everything they'd done, like on a raid if something went wrong, painfully aware that everything might blow up in your face any second, but just as aware that if you panicked, it would. They weren't running across the room any more either. They were still examining him, listening to his chest, scanning him with some sort of hand-held thing… They reduced the oxygen bit by bit, then took the mask off. Rogers gasped for a couple of seconds, then got used to it. He tried to sit up. The doctor laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Give it a minute. You might get vertical, but you won't like it much." He lay back down again. "BP of 119 over 75, Heart rate 60. We're winning. Are you feeling OK?"

"Better." He answered. She tilted her head at him. "Tired." He conceded.

"I think anyone'd be tired after going through that." She put her hand in his. "Squeeze my hand." He did. "Do your hands hurt?"

"No."

"I'd expect them to after that long without perfusion, mind you, the fact that you survived being frozen solid suggests something about your ischaemia tolerance." He had no idea what that meant, so just nodded. "Which finger am I poking?"

"First."

"What are four sevens?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Who's the President?"

"Obama, Barak Hussein, Democrat." She ran her hands under his jawline, then round his collarbones.

"What have you had to eat in the last 24 hours?"

"Not much. Three or four biscuits."

"You've been a prisoner, haven't you?"

"Yes." It still felt strange to say it.

"Was that amount of food typical?"

"I had nothing for the first few days, they told me they were keeping me going with fluids."

"Unlikely. You have a calorie requirement of over four thousand. That is hard to do on fluids. Were you told you didn't need to drink too?"

"Yeah."

"That may be the problem." She pulled his shirt up and started feeling his abdomen. "How long were you a prisoner?"

"Hard to say."

"Why?"

"I was drugged out a lot of the time and blindfold the rest of it." She hissed quietly. "Romanoff said I disappeared eight days ago."

"Nothing here hurts, does it?"

"No."

"I'm going to take bloods for round two of testing, see what we've fixed, if anything's still abnormal… I don't suppose you've got any idea what drugs they were giving you."

"No."

"And I don't suppose you've ever collapsed like this before."

"No. Not even before the serum."

"OK, I can't find anything to suggest you're in immediate danger, do you want to try sitting up?" He braced his arms and pushed himself up slowly. His head didn't spin. For the first time in days, his head didn't spin. "You OK?" He nodded. "How would you feel about being debriefed now?" Rogers dipped his head. He had a feeling this was going to be an uncomfortable experience.

"Fury's waiting, isn't he?"

"I don't give a toss if Fury's waiting. If you're not well enough to put up with him right now, that takes precedence." Rogers shook his head. It was tempting to put Fury off, but he didn't have the right.

"Call him. I'm alright."

"OK, Page, page him."

"The only thing I don't get," Page started, scratching at his stubble with one hand, "is why this hit so hard. Surely if it was just dehydration and hypoglycaemia, you'd have known something was wrong way before you collapsed."

"Maybe most people would have, but…" Doctor O'Malley replied. "He stores oxygen at an incredible density, his myoglobin count is ridiculous, which is one of the reasons he doesn't tire, so he could run using more oxygen than he could actually get for a long time before anything went wrong, then acidosis kicks in everywhere at once, there's no glucose so he's oxidizing fat, which is more difficult for some tissues, so CVRS goes mad. You saw how fast his heart was. Going at that speed, the heart stops being effective, it becomes a vicious circle, how thick his blood was will have made that worse too, but I agree, it's odd. Did you know something was wrong?"

"It should have been easy to keep up with Romanoff, but I thought I'd push through it, and we did have to run, we weren't safe where we were."

"So you just kept going as long as you could." He nodded. "Not advisable."

"We didn't have a lot of choice."

"I get that, anything else unusual over the past few days?"

"I've been light-headed a lot, they gave me some water when I asked." The door opened behind him. He looked round. Fury strode in, Romanoff a pace behind him.

"Everyone in here who is not clearance level three, out." Feretti, Mortimer and Page walked out. O'Malley didn't. She showed her ID card to Fury. "It's good to see you, Captain."

"Likewise, Sir." It was. As much as he was dreading this, at least he knew who he was dealing with now. Fury came and leant against the wall facing Rogers. He sighed.
"As fully as you can remember, Captain, what happened after you left camp eight days ago?"

It was uncomfortable. Rogers kept his account as minimal as he dared, Fury asked for more detail, some of it he didn't know, never taking his eye off Rogers, barely even blinking. Rogers didn't meet his stare. Fury thought he was an idiot for not seeing that the people that had him weren't SHIELD and was making no attempt to hide it. It took a long time, Fury pressed him for detail more and more as time went on, exactly what people had said, exactly what he'd told them. He shouldn't have told Grogan about peoples personal lives; he'd honestly thought she was a SHIELD nurse. He'd thought he could trust her. How much had she known? Had she believed what she'd told him? When he told Fury about Romanoff killing three guards, Fury held a hand up, letting him stop.

"I have the rest of it from Romanoff. Given how fast you saw through us in New York, I'm surprised you fell for that."

"There was nothing he could disprove." Romanoff said, speaking for the first time. "You gave him something he knew was fake in New York, this lot are smart. They stayed close to the truth, you were taken out in combat eight days ago. And, Fury, it's probably good that he's trusting. You could have had a hell of a problem in New York if he hadn't been."

"Do you not remember being captured?"

"No. I remember leaving the camp, heading out along the freeway towards this base, Carlsbad, I think I saw something burning somewhere, that's all."

"Makes sense." Romanoff said. "We found your bike on its stand, so you left it willingly, next to a burnt out car on the side of the freeway. There was a needle on the ground, we had it tested, it had a sedative cocktail in it. Barton and I guessed that they set up what looked like an accident, you went to help because you always would, they drugged you and took you across the border."

"Barton is fine, by the way." Fury said. "He's on his way back in." Rogers drew a deep breath and released it again.

"So what's our next move?"

"First of all, we need to warn the people you named as important to other Avengers, Pots and Solveg. Was there anyone else?" Rogers shook his head. "Then we storm the facility, take everyone we can alive for questioning. There are people on at the Mexican authorities for permission to run an op right now. Will he be fit to fight?" Fury asked the doctor, who was still sitting in the corner of the room, reading something. She hesitated.

"He looks OK right now, but I don't want to forget how he looked an hour ago. I hope that we've found all of it, I hope all he needs is food, water and sleep, but I don't want to bet on it."

"They'll be heading out in 24 hours. I want him on this one. He knows who's who in there. Make it happen." Doctor O'Malley didn't look pleased.

Rogers looked out of the window of the jeep and pulled his shield off his back. The sun was starting to rise, they were heading back to the base he'd been held at. He'd been cleared for active duty, though O'Malley hadn't seemed happy about it: "If you even start to feel odd, if you even think you're going to, get out of there. They're competent soldiers, they'll manage without you." He had a squad of twenty SHIELD agents, Romanoff and Barton, he still felt relieved every time he glanced at him, normal and so obviously alive. He'd spent most of the journey trying to learn the squad, who was good at what, how he could use them best. He'd have been happier if he knew the layout of the base better, Romanoff had tried to help him, but there was just no substitute for seeing a place yourself. He picked up his radio.

"Everyone, our priorities here are intel and taking people alive, so be loud, be scary, you can shoot to kill, but if you have a choice, shoot legs. There is a fuel tank, stay well clear of it, keep to cover, keep your heads on, these are probably mercenaries, we kill a few, the rest should give in." He lowered the radio. The jeeps stopped. He shouldered the door and sprinted out, the others followed him in file. Barton dropped to a crouch and shot an arrow high over their heads, at one of the guard towers. If that had hit someone, he hadn't had time to cry out. Four across, five deep, they broached the gateway, only then did the defenders start to cry in alarm. People on either side of him were shooting, best cover was to the left, they needed to force defenders right. He signalled, the squad followed him, forming up behind cover. The place was a mess, crates everywhere, cover everywhere. Barton had got up in to the guard tower, good. The guards had taken cover, effectively, few shots were being fired now, people were waiting for sightlines.

"Lay down your arms!" He bellowed. The other SHIELD soldiers took up the shout. Nobody did. He picked up his radio. "Barton, ready to blow the tank on my mark. I break cover then, keep them down."

"Ready." Baton said softly.

"Three, two, one, mark." In the split second it took the arrow to reach the fuel, Rogers jumped up. As he vaulted his cover, shield over his head and torso, bright orange light flashed across his eyes, a wave of hot air and the sound of rending metal hit him as he flew. Everyone else would be shielding themselves. He knew he'd be alright. The air felt thicker, he hit the ground. Five paces. He took off again, vaulting the first row of hostile cover. Five of them, crouching, still covering their ears from the explosion. He landed on one of them, knocking all the breath out of the man's body. The second he caught with the edge of his shield. They were starting to recover. Men behind would try to shoot him in a second. He'd done this enough times to know that. He charged the third, the man raised his fists, but wasn't quick enough. The one behind him was ready. Rogers jumped and kicked him in the guts. He rolled in the air. The fifth man had a gun trained on him. He tucked himself behind his shield. Someone else would have to get him out of this. That was a fully automatic weapon. The man jerked and fell silently, a hole in the side of his head. The whole squad had moved up. This was a very close fight now.

"Lay down your arms!" He repeated. The whole squad took it up again. He shuffled right to cover.

"Give it up!" Someone on the other side shouted. "Half of us are gonna get killed if we fight this out!"

"We surrender!" Someone else bellowed Rogers breathed out. The cry was echoed by a dozen or more men. Five bullets hammered in to the crate just above his head. He curled tighter behind his shield. What?

"Multiple companies!" Someone shouted from behind him. Romanoff. Someone roared in pain. Someone on the other side.

"Give me cover!" He shouted back. He jumped up, sprinted to the next bit of cover. As he vaulted it, he caught movement behind him on his left, someone was following him. Romanoff. Any that were shooting were shooting at him, mostly at his shield. He could feel the impact of bullets. He got over the cover. Six of them. He went right. Romanoff would cover his left. He took the first one with an uppercut to the jaw, hard enough to break it. Romanoff was behind him, clearing the other way. Two of the men in front of him dropped their guns and lifted their hands. Rogers kicked their guns away.

"We surrender." Someone shouted. The shooting stopped.

"On your knees, hands behind your heads." He ordered. He stood up fully, breathing hard. Harder than he should have been? It didn't matter. He was OK. Everyone in the yard seemed to have surrendered now. He looked back at his own men. "Everyone OK?"

"No casualties, Sir." The squad commander said. "And that was brave."

"Let's disarm this lot and leave them secure." It galled Rogers to have to wait. If this lot were like HYDRA, any other prisoners they might have in there were in danger for their lives every second since Barton had blown the tank. But they'd needed that to prevent a stalemate. Rogers blew out hard and scuffed at the ground.