Hollie watched in fascination as they prepared their gear. She saw May change into a black catsuit similar to the one Romanov was wearing and load weapon after weapon onto her body. She saw Romanov do the same and she saw Hawkeye prepare his bow and quiver of arrows. Amber and Kain armed themselves with a couple of guns each and Fitz-Simmons were making sure all of their electronic equipment was locked firmly into waterproof cases. Coulson hadn't changed out of his suit, but was loading it with all sorts of weapons.
She wouldn't have a clue what was going on if Ward and Skye hadn't been commentating. Romanov turned her spider bites on.
The team got into the cars. Coulson was driving one containing Fitz and the interns; May was driving the other with Simmons, Romanov and Hawkeye.
To satisfy Ward and show Hollie how good they were when they had time to plan they had all agreed to wear the head cameras.
"Base command this is Black Widow, do you copy?" They heard Romanov ask them
"Black Widow, this is base command. Reading you loud and clear."
"Black Widow?" Hollie asked.
"Nat's codename. It's a long story, but it's why the gloves are called spider bites. They're hers and no one else owns or has the designs for them." Ward explained.
"So what the hell happened between you and Coulson?" the heard Romanov ask May, they hadn't synced their comms up with the others yet so they had a few moments of relative privacy.
"Nothing."
"May? You do know you are on a bus with two of S.H.I.E.L.D's finest manipulators."
"She admitted she had feelings for him. To his face" They heard Simmons blurt.
"You did what?" they then heard Romanov say, while they could hear laughter in the background that could only be Hawkeye.
"Syncing up with Fitz now" Skye told them, giving them fair warning that everything they were about to say would be heard by everyone.
All Ward, Skye and Hollie could do now is sit back and enjoy the show.
The team made it to the rock face and bailed out of the cars. Fitz got out the portable x ray machine to start scanning the face for the door and its mechanism. He found it quickly and realised that it was a simple mechanism to crack. He removed the drill from the back of the car and drilled the key element of it. The door swung open and Fitz returned the drill to the car. With Coulson in the lead the team entered the obstacle. They cautiously walked down the slope and congregated at the opening. They hadn't set off the trap.
There was nowhere for them to tie the rope.
Hawkeye ran his hands around the tunnels entrance before backtracking up the slope, taking out an arrow and firing it into the roof of the opening. He walked over to the edge, threw the remainder of the rope down the side of the water trap and leaned back out over the edge and jumped once and then once more for luck. He told them they would have to take it in turns and when he reached the bottom he would let the next person know to set off.
Romanov elected to remain at the top and descend last. Once she hit the floor they all took out their rebreathers and proceeded to unlock the door. Coulson walked up to it and placed a small circular object on the lock before turning around and walking five paces away from it. The lock blew away easily and the door swung wide open. Coulson walked along the thin ledge of the Sulphur pit and blew the next door.
The rest of the team made their way over the path and congregated on the ledge by the river. May jimmied the door shut with a knife so that they could remove their air masks. That's when they noticed the carcasses of the two alligators were gone.
Hawkeye took aim above the river and fired. He took a rock out of his pack and tied it to the end so they could swing it backwards and forwards. Coulson, May, Romanov and Hawkeye swung to the other side of the river. They swung the rope back to Amber, who tied it to May's knife in the door. Fitz was waking up the dwarves and sending them on their way.
He sent them towards where they saw the body earlier in the day. When he got them there he took samples from the body using some of the dwarves, while sending others further into the tunnel. He got to a dead end so he turned them back and when Simmons had declared they had collected enough samples from the body he sent the dwarves to follow Coulson and the others. He got to the next junction they came across and headed down the track they didn't take. They dwarves detected that which they already knew. That way had been electrified. Fitz sent the dwarves further down the tunnel, which led downwards. If you chose that path you would be electrocuted with enough power to cause you immense amounts of pain, but not kill you. The slope pulled you downwards and ended in an open door at the bottom. The dwarves went through it and Fitz stopped them. They were in a room that had a bed of nails on the floor. The entrance was at the top. There was no chance of survival if you made it through the electro tunnel. There were bodies in varying states of decomposition and what looked like hundreds of skeletons.
Meanwhile the others had set off for the path the group had taken earlier.
"Just be careful of snakes." May warned them as the neared the end of the corridor.
"What is it with you and damn snakes?" Romanov asked her
"I just don't like them; it's the way they move." May told her.
"A little help please!" Hawkeye said from behind them. The other three turned to see May's snake friend coiling itself around Hawkeye's throat. May took out her gun and fired at the snake. The bullet passed clean through and caught Hawkeye.
"Thanks May. I thought I was a gonner!" he said, as they patched the cut to the side of his throat.
"Let's go" Coulson said to them and they all hurried the final distance to the trapdoor.
They helped each other climb through it and into the room with the bats. They turned their torches on which kept the bats from swooping. Hawkeye rigged another rope to the ventilation tunnel and Romanov climbed up first, followed by Coulson, May and Hawkeye.
"Nat, If you get electrocuted you've gone too far!" May told her.
They had barely made it five metres when they was a loud fizz and crackle with an accompanying flash of blue light.
"Ow!" Romanov yelped.
"You ok?" Coulson asked directly behind her.
"Yeah, just accidentally felt a bite!" She replied, turning her spider bites off so she didn't manage to zap herself again.
She set off again and they quickly made it to the junction. Within ten minutes Romanov had reached the grate. It seemed that it had been replaced, so she took her torch and pushed at it. The grate sent off sparks as the electric circuit in the grate blew.
She held her hands on the edge before rolling out of the hole and landing catlike on the floor. She helped Coulson down and between them they got May and Hawkeye out of the hole.
They suddenly heard screaming and gunshots down their comms lines. Something was going wrong with the others.