"Coulson, they're surrounding me." Natasha was careful to keep both eyes on her attackers. Whether they couldn't move while she was looking or just chose not to, it was the only advantage she had in her repertoire.

"Don't move." Came the immediate response. "There's an extraction team an hour from you -"

"That's not enough time!" Natasha snapped. "These things move fast - as soon as I look away they're going to be on me."

"Alright, just hold on." Coulson sounded frantic.

"Agent Hess on comms." A female voice sounded through her earpiece.

"Who the hell told you to come online?"

"Agent Coulson, sir, I believe I can help. I've been studying the heat signatures and energy levels surrounding the church, and in the past few days there have been extrenuous abnormalities in the fluctuation -"

"Can you get to the point." Natasha said through gritted teeth. Agent Hess coughed.

"Yes, of course. The point is, I believe these angels are somehow drawing energy from the dissolution of the atoms involved in transporting someone through space."

"So he's alive." A sweep of relief rushed through Natasha, surprising even herself.

"Well..." Agent Hess sounded hesitant, and dread immediately replaced the relief.

"Well, what?"

"The amount of energy it produced - that couldn't be caused by transporting him anywhere on earth, and moving him across the barriers that separate us from the other alien planets would only sap their energy. So it's not really a question of where he went, it's more a question of when."

Natasha couldn't respond for a moment. She was so utterly blank that she made the mistake of blinking - and then stumbled back into the cold, hard stone of the railing when the angels were suddenly so close she could reach out and touch them.

"We've never encountered time travel before," Coulson was saying when she tuned back into the conversation; "how do you even know that it's possible?"

"I don't, sir, but it seems like the only reasonable explanation."

"Reasonable." Coulson laughed, but it was verging on the line of hysterics. "Of course it is."

Natasha's mind raced. The extraction team was too far away to help her now, and Clint was beyond anyone's help - well, anyone's but hers. And then she started to form a plan.

"Coulson. I'm going to set my phone on the balcony and start recording a video. I need you to watch it from HQ. If I'm right, and these things can't move when someone's watching them, it'll give me a good enough head start."

"Are you sure?"

"No." Natasha answered firmly. "But right now it's my only option."

She heard the hesitation, Coulson's moment of indecisiveness before he pulled in a breath and answered, "Go ahead."

She set the phone to 'record', placed it gently on the balcony, and then crawled over the edge and dropped to the concrete, a forward roll breaking most of her fall. She half expected to look up to see the angels on her, but it seemed to be working - for now.

She jumped to her feet and started running.

"Agent Hess, I want that video up. Now." Coulson had found his way down to the control room where Hess had been conducting her research, and irritably stuck his earpiece in its case where it wouldn't pick up every goddamn breath someone took. She jumped and looked over at him, her short blonde hair sticking up in every direction like she'd recently stuck her finger in a light socket. With the stories he'd heard about her - unusual - experiments, it wouldn't surprise him if she actually had.

"Of course, sir." She hit a few buttons, and - there. God, that really was terrifying. There were too many angels to count, all with outstretched hands and teeth bared.

"Alright. Call in as many agents as you need to keep an eye on these things. And whatever you do, don't blink."

"Yes, sir." She replied automatically. Coulson stormed out of the room, dialling the extraction team's number once again.

"Estimated time?"

"We were able to clear through a storm area, so our ETA is now 37 minutes."

"Report back with any changes." Coulson hung up. Clint was lost, somewhere in a completely different time period - if Hess was right - and there was nothing he could do to bring him back. Nothing that he'd thought of yet. But he'd find something - he had to find something. Losing Clint was not an option. He turned down another hall, and knocked on the first door to the left. A middle-aged woman opened the door, and gave him a smile.

"Phil Coulson. It's been a while."

"It has, and I'm afraid this isn't a social call, Amanda."

"Of course." She replied briskly. "What do you need?"

"I need something to travel in time."

Amanda started to laugh, but then noticed the apparent desperation on his face and stopped.

"You can't be serious."

"Deadly." Coulson responded. "Clint's encountered a breed of - somethings - that were able to send him back in time."

"I'm afraid that's impossible." Amanda said with a shake of her head.

"There has to be something -" Coulson broke off as his phone started to ring. "What?" He snapped.

"Agent Coulson, sir, we have a bit of an issue." It was Agent Hess's voice, sounding small and bewildered on the other end of the line.

"What is it?"

"Well, sir - somehow, the angels are able to manifest more than one form."

"What does that mean?"

"It means - it came out of the video, sir. It's appearing right now."

"Shut off the video." Coulson replied instantly. "Don't take your eyes off of it. I'm on my way."

"But sir, Agent Romanoff -"

"Will already be halfway across the country, if I know her at all. It's time to worry about yourself." He was already moving. "You've never let me down, Amanda." He called over his shoulder. "Don't start now. Please." And then he was running down the halls, not having any clue what he was going to do when he reached the control room.