A/N. Hello :) Here's today's update, back to Stania for a little but but at the end we get some Fury and more Hill than we're used to. Hope you enjoy :D

P.S. I wasn't going to make Felicity part of "the dark side" until Fellowship of Avengers gave me the idea, so thank you :)

P.P.S. I've noticed that some of you have left reviews asking about how the Avengers can have their own comic books (refer to the chapter with Pepper/Betty comforting Graham when he wants to join SHIELD... don't remember the number) and originally Captain America was the only one to have comic books (as seen in the CA movie). At the end of Avengers, we see things like Iron Man masks and Avengers merchandise in the montage with Stan Lee in it, so why not comic books? At that point it would have been a little too soon to have created a comic book but it has been 8 months since the Chitauri incident. I think it's totally plausible that there have been comics created on the Avengers in this universe. Also, Pepper was only referring to Graham getting Steve to autograph his comic book. Not Tony or the others.

P.P.P.S One last thing. Discovering the details of Stania's time expedition WILL come, but it will come WAAAAAAY near the end - like right before the Epilogue, type of end. So yeah, it's coming, but you just have to be patient to see Tony reaction that Howard kissed Tania xP Okay. 'Nough said. Ciao!

CHAPTER XXVII

Fire. Fire burned in his veins, boiled in his blood, and coiled his fists. Fire fueled his anger. Fire fueled his rage. Fire fueled his passion. His anger was directed at himself, for he brought Tania into this situation. This was his entire fault. He had tried to turn Tania away from him and his dangerous life (not very hard) and she had turned him down. He should have enforced it harder, should have gotten her out of there when he had the chance. His rage was directed at HYDRA. Those fucking bastards had killed Tania – and then brought her back to life just to torture her AND him some more. It was the most cruel, heartless, truly evil thing he had ever witnessed in his entire life. And he had been in World War Two. His passion was mostly directed towards his love for Tania, his devotion to her and his vow to make her laugh every day and to protect her as much as he could. This passion was aflame throughout his body now more than ever, but she was closed off, broken.

Water. Water flowed down his face in tears and circled through his gut in waves. Water displayed his sadness. Water made his guilt physically painful. His sadness was because of everything. The world must hate him for some reason. Otherwise, why be so cruel? What was the point of going through all of this? Why? He had shed more tears than he cared to admit and it was so hard to stay strong – but he managed it somehow, for her. Water (or some form of liquid) churned in his stomach in the form of guilt for failing to protect Tania, for allowing her to be sucked into his life. He was mentally beating himself to a pulp inside. But it was the swirling in his gut that did it for him.

Earth. The Earth was strong, constant, and reliable. Like Tania, it was always there; ready to catch him when he fell. It would never leave, never let him down. His love for her worked the same way. It was unwavering. It was faithful. It was just as strong. And he knew that hers mirrored his. She grounded him, kept him rooted to the spot when he felt like a balloon about to fly away. There was no Earth in this HYDRA base. It was unnerving.

Air. He never seemed to have enough of it. He breathed in short gasps twenty-four seven now because Neo Red Skull had decided he needed to be permanently subdued. He had apparently killed Austerlitz with that flying spin kick to the head. He must have been angrier than he thought. So they shot him twice a day now. And they had him chained to the wall by his wrists and ankles made of some sort of metal he had never seen before. He had no idea where they had gotten it, but it wasn't vibranium or titanium alloy or adamantium or whatever elements Tony and Bruce talked about. And so now he wheezed day and night and there was never enough air in his lungs. He felt like he was slowly dying, like they were stealing his oxygen. Not only that, but he felt empty. Useless. He couldn't do anything to protect the one he loved and they had killed when just before he had said that he wouldn't let that happen – and then it had happened. How could he have been so cocky and naïve and overconfident? He had been so stupid. And now he felt like he was suffocating.

Tania sat a few feet away, curled up in a ball and facing away from him. When Steve had awoken, they had both been in this position. He'd tried to call her over, to see if she was asleep (or worse), to reach out to her, but she'd resisted each time. She hadn't spoken a word. She hadn't looked at him. She refused to touch him. He could understand that. He kind of hated himself too. Especially now that he knew how much she had been affected by that experience in the water.

The door suddenly burst open and in came a HYDRA soldier with a gun. Well, time sure went by fast. Steve didn't even move when the gun was aimed at him. He just clenched his muscles and waited. He didn't have to wait long. As promised, the bullet lodged itself into the same place as before and he yanked at his chains but otherwise remained still and quiet. The man left without a word and Steve was left to bleed to death.

Tania finally turned around. Her face was blank. It was the scariest thing Steve had ever seen except watching her die. She was pale, like a ghost and her eyes were void of anything that reminded him of any emotion whatsoever. She crawled over to the first aid kit and removed all the necessary tools and equipment before dragging at all towards him. She did the work without even making a face. Who was this person? It most certainly wasn't Tania, not the one he loved.

He panted while she removed the bullet and cleaned his wound. Once he was all wrapped up, she began to back away again. Not wanting to startle her, he slowly reached out and grabbed her wrist. She didn't jump or anything but she didn't look at him. She just stared at the wall on the other side of the room.

"Tania," he croaked. She didn't move. "Look at me. Please. I'm begging you."

Several seconds went by. Slowly, tentatively, she turned her head to face him. The second their eyes met Steve could feel the embers glowing somewhere inside of him – a sign that their love was still there, just buried beneath all the drama and the hurt and everything else piled on top of them. For a long time, they simply stared.

He gently tugged on her arm and she obliged, allowed herself to be pulled closer. With his arms sort of free this time around, Steve was able to wrap them around her and cuddle her to his chest. She curled up into a ball again, but this time was she buried into his side with one of his arms wrapped around her shoulders and the other stroking her hair. He inhaled her scent and immediately he felt more at ease. He was touching her, holding her, she was safe there. Nothing had yet to happen while she was in his arms. Nothing could ruin it.

They sat like that, together, for what was probably hours. Eventually, Steve broke the silence. "I love you," he whispered.

She slowly looked up at him. She began signing. I love you too. Even though he didn't know sign language, he could pretty much guess what she'd said. Her eyes had finally decided to show something: love.

It was such a relief. She was broken, but she could be fixed. And he would be the one to fix her, to rebuild her piece by piece. "Tania, Darling… I love you more than you could ever imagine. You are my whole world. Please don't leave me."

She shook her head, keeping her eyes locked with his. She moved her hands to communicate. I promise. Again, her eyes were what spoke to him. He nodded in understanding.

"We'll get through this. Together. You and I. The perfect team. We'll get through this and we'll come out stronger. Just like nineteen forty-five. We'll get through this."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. She pressed a hand to his chest weakly and he backed away an inch, looking down at her. She looked up for a split second before her lips connected with his.

He was surprised to say the least but it was a pleasant surprise. This kiss told him everything he needed to know. She trusted him. She loved him. She believed him. She had faith in him. She was his. Forever more.

He kissed back with fervor, wrapping his arms around her waist protectively and possessively, bringing her closer to him. He needed to know she was really there, really with him and not dead like he'd seen. He needed to know that he wasn't dreaming.

The kissing stopped when his hand unconsciously found its way under her dress and she pulled away. She pointed to the cameras and he nodded. Not in front of the HYDRA Nazis. Their true love, in its oldest, rawest, and purest form, was for their eyes only. It was intensely private. Not something they would let just anyone see.

He kissed the top of her head again before she settled into his side and they sat there, waiting for rescue. Steve and Jarvis brainstormed through code on more plans but so far had come up with diddlysquat.

That was when the door opened. Neither prisoner flinched but Steve gripped her shoulders tighter. The light that entered the room was bright, but the door was on the adjacent wall to the, so it wasn't blinding.

In rolled the man with the wheelchair, the one Steve had seen before in the tank and the one who had recognized Tania at the theatre. The Captain growled and moved forward, rattling his chains, to sit in front of Tania protectively.

As the man entered further into the room, the thick metal door swung closed behind him. He approached slowly and cautiously as darkness swept over the room again and everyone's eyes had to adjust. That was when something snapped and something in his hands began to glow green.

A glow stick. Steve remembered the other Avengers showing him what those were when they went to the amusement park on Thor's birthday back in December. Graham had said that they were "wicked cool".

The stick in the man's hands illuminated the room enough so that they could see his face. The three of them had a staring contest of some sort before Steve started to notice something. His eyes. They were… familiar. But from where?

Having noticed Steve's glare-turned-scrutiny, the old man sighed. "My name is Klaus Drechsler. But you might know me better as 'Guy'. We met in nineteen forty-five, when I was twenty."

Tania's eyes widened, but Steve still didn't get it. "I don't know you."

He shook his head. "No. You don't. You never did. But you've met me. I was that HYDRA soldier you interrogated." He turned to Tania. "And you too."

It finally clicked into place. "It's you," he breathed. The man who'd tackled Tania when they time travelled in nineteen forty-five during the HYDRA attack he'd stopped. The man they had both interrogated before he'd confessed that there was a bomb to his chest so they'd sent him on a submarine into the ocean to die. Tania had found a piece of the submarine with the word "REVENGE" written on it. So he really had survived.

Guy, or rather Klaus, nodded. "It's me. I'm eighty-eight now. It's been a long time."

"What do you want?"

Klaus looked down at the floor. "I don't know," his voice was hoarse and he didn't have as thick an accent as the others. "But I knew I had to see you. I needed to know if it was really her." He stared at Tania pointedly who squeaked in response.

Steve was thrown for a loop. Could this guy know about time travel? If he didn't already know, should Steve tell him? How would he explain it to him if he said know? She looked exactly the same. But then again, the time machine had been destroyed. What was the point of telling anyone if no one could use it or believe him if he were to tell anyone? Still…

"This is… Nancy's… um… granddaughter, Tania."

She shook her head before signing frantically, knowing full well no one could understand her. Both men stared at her incredulously but Klaus seemed to realize the gist of what she was trying to say.

"So you're… actually her? Nancy?"

Steve sighed. "Nancy was a name she made up. Just like when I posed as William."

"You were alive… after the crash." Steve's eyes quickly flicked to the cameras in every corner of the room. Klaus waved a hand in dismissal. "Don't worry about them. I muted the cameras. They can't hear us."

Steve eyed him warily. "How do I know I can trust you?"

He shrugged. "You don't. You just have to take a leap of faith."

Tania and Steve exchanged a brief glance. She nodded at him and he sucked in a breath. He let it all out in a drawn out exhale. "Fine. Yes, I was alive after the crash. Still am."

"But you were in nineteen forty-five. Undercover. Why? Have you been undercover all this time but came out to fight those aliens?"

"No."

"Then what? And I get that you're still alive, a side effect of the serum maybe, but her? How is she still so… young?"

Steve looked at her and she nodded at him again. "Time travel," he answered.

Klaus' eyes widened. "Impossible…"

"Said the man to the super soldier and who witnessed it himself."

"I… I…" he was speechless. After a time, he rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows tiredly and slouched forward. "So it really was you? Both of you?"

"Yes."

He eyed them both. "You look… the same."

"It wasn't that long ago. Four months. And a half."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"So… you're real name is Tania?"

She nodded.

"And William Coulson doesn't exist?"

"No."

He rubbed at his eyes. "Well… that's certainly a lot to take in."

"Uh huh."

There is a silence that spreads on, dragging out his eventual reply. "You know… there was a reason I told you about the bomb, Miss Banks."

She looked up at him, confused.

"I told you that I liked you. That I didn't want you to die. I wasn't lying."

The door opened and in stepped another guard with barf- oh, wait, that's food. Klaus eyed them both with a stare that neither of them could decipher before rolling backward and away. He exited the room with the guard after the food (barf) had been thrown onto the floor and they were shrouded in darkness once again.

On the helicarrier that had finally arrived in Germany, the Avengers began setting up a manual search team. Clint and Natasha (along with some other agents) were to take a quinjet and fly around Hamburg using the cloaking device as a cover. Bruce took a motorcycle similar to the one he had "borrowed" to get back to the Chitauri battle and would search the downtown city streets. Thor would walk around undercover in the marketplace and search that way. Peter would travel by rooftops also undercover across town. Tony had excused himself to make a phone call outside the helicarrier that had landed in the SHIELD German airport and had yet to return.

Five minutes later, he sat himself down on a couch in the airport and waited. Less than an hour later, everyone at SHIELD was shocked when the Iron Patriot landed just two feet from Tony's position. They were even more shocked when the War Machine suit landed right next to it.
Iron Patriot's facemask lifted to reveal Rhodey. Tony grinned and stood up, grasping his best friend's hand in a friendly greeting. "What took you so long?"

Rhodey snorted. "Oh please."

Tony wormed his way into the War Machine suit (which had been piloted by JARVIS) and the two of them flew off, no doubt to join the search, while still bickering.

Agent Hill ran off to tell Director Fury, her heeled boots clacking against the metal rafters of the warehouse nearby that looked over the airport. She climbed the stairs and joined her superior on the top rafter, looking out over all his agents.

"Sir, Stark and Rhodes-"

"I know, Agent Hill."

"But Sir,-"

"Lt. Col. Rhodes is not authorized to be a part of this mission and is not a part of the Avengers Initiative. I know. But it's like Stark said: 'We can use all the help we can get.' Why the hell do you think I let Parker in on this?"

"They are flying around in their armour. They're bound to be seen by someone."

"They'll be careful."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because this is a very serious thing. Stark tends to get too serious when it comes to people's lives."

"Sir, are you sure-?"

"I'm positive."

Maria pursed her lips. "Permission to speak freely, Sir?"

"Permission granted."

"This search and mission is pointless. You cannot expect them to find a well hidden HYDRA base by manually searching the city one of them thinks may hold their friends."

"Maybe so, but it's all they've got. They need hope, Agent. I'm giving it to them."

"But is it worth it? We've just relocated an entire armada of SHIELD agents without telling them and we're giving them false hope."

"Is hope really false, Agent Hill?"

"In this case, Sir, I believe it is."

"And that's why I'm the director and you're second in command."

She uncrossed and then re-crossed her arms. "Director, I think we should go back to base. This is useless. There is no way HYDRA will give up Rogers without a fight even if we do find them – which is next to impossible. This isn't our fight. If they want to keep searching, let them. But we should never have gotten involved."

"The Avengers are under SHIELD's protection. When one of our agents goes missing, we put everything we've got into getting them back."

"Unless the Council says otherwise."

Fury looked pained for a second, but then it was gone and he was a blank slate again. "Yes. Unless the Council says otherwise."

"And that's when we send in Strike Team Delta."

Fury's lips twitched. "Of course."

"Sir… let's go back."

Fury turned around completely to face Maria, hands clasped behind his back. "Phil Coulson believes in heroes. Do you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "There is proof that they're real right in front of us."

"I didn't ask if you thought they were real. I asked you if you believed in them."

She raised her chin defiantly. "No, Sir. I don't."

"I thought so. So tell me, Agent Hill, how the Avengers came together to defeat a common enemy, the first time."

"They were temporarily united by the supposed death of Agent Coulson."

"And how do you think they're going to come together this time."

Maria shifted her weight. "The capture of Captain Rogers and Miss Banks."

"Exactly."

"So you really think they're going to do it? You really think they're going to find this HYDRA base? And what if they're dead, what happens then?"

Fury turned away from her and looked out over the balcony again, sliding his hands across the bar outwards. "Then the Avengers Initiative is no more."

"But Sir-!"

"Quiet, Agent!" he snapped. She immediately shut up, but she didn't look happy about it. "Without their leader, the Avengers will refuse to cooperate. They will continue to fight against evil, but they will not be the same. And without Miss Banks… they will all be scared. Especially the Captain. He will never be the same. They will be broken. Missing a piece of their…"

"Team?"

"Family. They will not be whole."

"But it's just like you said, they'll continue fighting."

"But it won't be the same."

"What does it matter if it's the same as long as they continue the Initiative?"

"They will not be the team they once were. They will fall apart and evil will win."

"You sound so sure of yourself."

"I am."

"How can you be?"

"Because I've seen it."

"The future?" she asked sarcastically.

He shook his head. "No. I've seen what they're like when they're missing someone. Look at Stark. We were monitoring his battle with Killian. He was defeated before Ms. Potts saved his life. These people are nothing without each other."

"Is that why you're doing this? Because you're afraid they'll fall apart if they don't at least try?"

"I'm not afraid. But yes, that's why I'm doing this."

Maria held back the urge to roll her eyes. "Could we not bring them back together by using the same thing we did the first time?"

Fury glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "He wouldn't be the piece they're missing."

She sighed. "So we're just going to sit here until we find something."

A breeze swept over them, blowing his coat to the left and gently brushing her hair into her face which she tucked behind her ear. Nick Fury didn't know how to answer that. She had a point. They couldn't sit here forever. There was a definite possibility that Rogers Banks were dead. They could be here searching for nothing for an indeterminate amount of time. What was he going to do?

Hill had a totally business perspective, where she saw most people as expendable and looked at everything and saw numbers, liabilities, and assets. He didn't have that. Despite being "thee super spy", he had feelings.

Captain Rogers was a good man – one the world could not afford to lose. He was the one who kept his team in line and prevented them from driving the Director insane and busting the vain in his forehead. He was the responsible one, the mature one, the honest one, and most importantly, the most obedient one. He gave in reports on time and gave very detailed, military-style reports whereas Tony handed his brief version on a soiled napkin with a leaky pen. The Captain was punctual and organized and all of his traits were admirable. He would go through Heaven and Earth to save a member of his team. The favour should be returned. And then there was Miss Banks. She would make a good agent one day. Of that, he had no doubt. She was loyal and had proven trustworthy so far. She was stubborn and determined but that was something he liked about her. She stood her ground and didn't let herself get walked on and stood up for her friends (namely Bruce) and did things thoroughly. She was a hard worker and a major contributor to Captain Roger's adjustment to the twenty-first century as well as his performance. When he had something to fight for, Fury noticed that the good Captain fought a lot harder and was a lot happier and more optimistic during missions. The two of them made a good team all on their own. Another upside to Miss Banks joining SHIELD.

Finally, he turned his head slightly in acknowledgement of Agent Hill. "For now." He pushed off the railing and swept past her, barely grazing her shoulder as he did so. He paused one step down the stairs. "Remind me to give Miss Banks and Ms. Potts clearance to level seven."
Maria kept her face blank but from her stance, he could tell that she was not happy with the results of their conversation. "Yes, Sir." She took that as her cue to leave and uncrossed her arms before passing him down the stairs.

Fury watched her go. He sighed as another breeze blew by. "Don't let me down you two. Or I'll kill you myself." He continued down the stairway.