So, this is an old story that I had started, but never finished. Until now. Thus it is set just after Winter Soldier and Shield's implosion and before Coulson's team got some new faces and the current storylines featuring the Inhumans. Just to warn you.

"This is not going at all like I thought it would." Skye tried to hunch even closer to the ground, pressing her back up against the concrete barrier as bullets tore into the other side and went zinging wildly overhead. She fingered her semi-automatic, again trying to remember if she'd blindly squeezed off seven rounds or eight.

Next to her Coulson waited until a slight lull before popping up to return three rounds, ducking back down when the fire intensified again. "At least you're not bored."

Skye just rolled her eyes. Between the weird, walking robotic death machines, a collection of Centipede soldiers, and smattering of Hydra agents all trying to kill her little team being bored was pretty far from her thought process. However, not getting shot in the gut again occupied quite a bit of it.

It was true though. Having Widow and Captain America around often led to...shall we say exciting times. Those two generally didn't get set up with simple recon or hacking mission protocols. No, if you wanted someone to sift through twenty-two layers of the most thorough, mind bogglingly dull encryption then you called Skye. If you wanted someone to infiltrate an enemy stronghold, take on forty soldiers almost single handedly, and then blow up said base? Well then an Avenger or two was a good bet.

They'd had three such missions using the two superheroes as consultants. All three successes. Captain Rogers had turned out to be every bit the perfect human being that the history books had heaped so much praise upon. It was almost uncanny. Nobody was that nice. Or courteous. At least nobody born in the last few decades anyway. The fact that he was actually older than most people's grandparents did nothing to dissuade his attractiveness either. Especially after the first time she got to see him take charge and throw that shield of his to take down three enemies in one fell swoop.

Even the infamous Black Widow had turned out to be something of a surprise. Secretive? Yes. Deadly? Almost pants wettingly so. But she also had a sharp, sarcastic sense of humor and was nothing but forthcoming and genuinely nice when it came to Skye. Granted she probably did that right before she killed you too, but ignorance was bliss. Ward certainly never seemed to ease up around her and he probably knew more about her history than anyone. Of course, once the helicarriers had fallen out of the sky and Hydra was exposed he had a pretty good reason for being scared to death of SHIELD's deadliest assassin.

After that the occasional missions with "their" consultants came to a screeching halt. Coulson was stressed about having to try and start up a whole new clandestine security service and the rest of them were just along for the ride.

That was until both Rogers and Romanoff showed up at the Playground without warning and with evidence of a new Hydra base in the Canadian Rockies. Apparently they needed some tech help. That kind of thing could become sorely lacking when the big, bad organization goes kaput.

And now they were all trying to avoid being killed by killer robots and half crazed Centipede enhanced lunatics.

"Remember the days when we used to be able to call for backup?" May said from somewhere to their right, interspersed by a burst of static over the comms and a grunt as she supposedly disposed of yet another bad guy.

Coulson nodded, coolly as ever as an explosion rocked one of the nearby buildings. "Good times. Think I'm gonna miss that." Then he chanced a look around the side of their cover. "May, three of em at your two o'clock."

"There's three of them everywhere," came the terse reply.

A sudden shadow falling over the pair had them both craning their necks up. Captain America moved to stand tall above them in full red, white, and blue regalia, his shield held high to block the incoming gunfire. Skye swallowed hard. God Bless America.

"Status," he asked, as though he was merely sharing in small talk.

Coulson slapped another magazine into his handgun and glanced over the cover again. "May is off behind those metal containers," he said, indicating the shipping bins stacked three tall in orderly rows. "Protecting our flank. Tripp's on the other side with Fitz and Simmons. He took a hit, but Simmons said he was fine. They're bunkered down with Fitz trying to access the robots and the defense grid remotely."

The masked superhero nodded, never taking his eyes off the raging battlefield.

"And I'm right here, you know, trying to stay as little as possible," Skye piped in, blindly sticking her handgun over the barricade and squeezing off another two rounds. Lord knows that was probably doing next to nothing but she'd be damned if she didn't at least pull the trigger.

Rogers didn't respond, glancing over as another building was engulfed in flames. "Widow, how you doing?"

"Just another day in paradise." There were two shots and a weird electronic crackling noise punctuated by a few thuds and someone gasping. "I'm good for another half dozen by the way."

Captain America nodded again. "I'm headed right up the middle. Gonna see if I can't draw some attention and let Coulson's team regroup."

"Right. Can't see how you're not gonna draw some attention dressed like that."

Rogers scoffed, still holding his shield solidly in place as bullets ricocheted harmlessly off. "Anyway," he said, "See if you can't try and draw a little fire from wherever the hell you are too."

"Roger, Rogers."

The Avenger rolled his eyes, but in one smooth motion was hurtling the relative protection of the concrete barrier and sprinting forward. Skye peeked around the side long enough to see him cover thirty yards in seconds before flinging his shield sideways to bank off a shipping container and sliding from view beneath a parked big rig. Right before she ducked back behind cover a Hydra agent came whistling out from behind the truck, striking a car so hard he dented the side panel.

"Awesome," Skye managed to whisper.

"Right?" Coulson said at her side, nodding happily. It was about as giddy as the stoic man generally got, one corner of his mouth hitched up in a little smile.

The amount of gunfire coming their way happened to drop off dramatically too. Now more sporadic than the constant suppressing fire they had been facing. Apparently having an annoyed super soldier flinging a shield at you did in fact draw some manner of attention.

Coulson wasted little time. "May, on me. We're rendezvousing with the others at their position. Fitz, how's it coming?"

"Well…" there was the sound of clicking keys followed by a quiet curse. "I managed to get some of the security measures scrambled a bit."

Coulson frowned. "Some?"

Simmons cut in over the line. "It means he was able to turn off the cameras."

"Not helping," the tech specialist barked.

May crept up beside Skye and Coulson right then, nodding as she wordlessly took up position to one side. "So, you're telling me that at least they can't really track our movements?" Coulson asked.

"Ummm…" There was a pause. "Well, except for all the motion and thermal sensors built into those death bots everywhere, no."

"Right. Keep trying. We're heading your way."

"I don't like it, Phil," May whispered when he turned back to his two team members. "We're massively outnumbered and outgunned

here. Not to mention in a fairly indefensible position and with no hope of reinforcements showing up."

"We do have two Avengers with us," Skye supplied.

And on queue Natasha Romanoff dropped down next to Skye without a sound. Skye may or may not have squeaked a bit at the sudden appearance, her shock being the only thing that prevented her finger from reflexively pulling on the trigger. That and the fact that the redhead would probably kill her for accidentally almost killing her.

"I still really hate that name," the assassin said nonchalantly, shaking out her red hair as she fiddled with something on her forearm. Seriously? Ninjas would give this woman a bad name.

Looking up for a second she made eye contact with the senior agent. "You're clear to the others' position by the way. It's taken care of."

Coulson nodded, glancing over towards the center of the compound where there was a large open space surrounded by heavy equipment and storage containers. Hydra had certainly been in a hurry to pack things up and get outta here when the team had shown up.

"Where's Rogers?"

The Black Widow shrugged, clearly unworried as she checked the chamber of her opposite semi-automatic. "Doing his big damn hero thing," she said and left it at that.

Right on cue another explosion ripped through the yard beyond their line of sight. Coulson nodded to himself and pointed Skye along the westernmost wall, following soon afterward with the other two agents in tow.

Three minutes, a smattering of bullets, and some martial arts moves that would make a contortionist blush out of May and Romanoff later and they jogged into the makeshift cover their other team was using partially sandwiched in between some steel shipping containers.

"Hey boss," Tripp said, propped up with a sight line down the corridor formed between two stacks of heavy containers. His leg was bandaged heavily and he winced as he shifted the slightest bit. So, that was one that wasn't going to be too mobile. At least the resident nerds of the group seemed to be in working order.

The senior agent patted his injured subordinate on the shoulder before looking over at the smaller man bent over a laptop. "Fitz, give me good news," he said.

"Ummm." He glanced up at Coulson a couple times, blinking rapidly. "See, it's not as easy as a simple brute force hack," he sputtered, now staring back at the screen and typing rapidly. "The encryption has actually changed three times since I started. I have to start all over again everytime it shifts." Fitz shook his head. "Bloody annoying is what it is. I've never seen anything like it."

"Gimme," Skye said, reaching for his laptop. "Let me take a look."

The tech specialist promptly snatched it back. "Now hold a moment, I'm gonna get it. It's just going to take a little…"

Captain America came crashing in, slamming into the concrete wall of the bunker that formed one wall of the cover they were pressed up against before ducking down. A stream of weapons fire laced in behind him, scoring the concrete where he'd been not a half second before.

"Everybody okay?" he asked, looking them all over as a couple bullets ricocheted off the shield on his back.

Beside Skye the Black Widow leaned out, squeezed the trigger three times and the firing stopped.

You could hear the bad guys though shouting. Hydra was regrouping, bringing their superior numbers to bear on a massively outnumbered, outgunned ex-Shield team. And that was despite having two Avengers in the mix. Several machine guns could be seen being set up in elevated positions across the assembly areas on top of the containers, ready to rain down fire. And they had some kind of super death bot coming up from behind a large crane. The damned thing looked like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. Lots of legs and weird sensors poking out at odd angles. And a couple of really big guns. Spider tank maybe?

"That's a lot of contacts," Romanoff said, calmly picking off a Hydra agent who popped his head out just the tiniest bit too far.

Nodding in agreement Captain America popped up to take a long look around, angling his shield to give him protection. "And the big one's got armor thick enough to make a Panzer jealous."

The widow cocked her head the slightest bit, not even flinching as a round impacted their cover not eight inches away. "You want me to try a more subtle approach? Or is it time to get creative?"

Skye just stared. How were these two staying so damn calm through all this? There were like more than four dozen enemy combatants breathing down their necks with every intention of turning them all into little red smears and they were acting like it was another day at the office.

The Captain smacked a grenade away with his shield, causing it to land amongst three Centipede augmented soldiers and promptly shred them to little bits.

Oh right, Centauri invasion and battling three helicarriers at once. Yeah, that'll do it.

Rogers looked back at Romanoff though and shook his head. "No. Stay put. I'm bringing in a bigger hitter."

Romanoff paled the tiniest bit at that, pausing midway through loading a fresh clip in one of her handguns. The normally emotionless redhead suddenly seemed uncharacteristically tense. "Green or blonde?"

Rogers nodded, obviously understanding the strange question. "Too many new faces for the Other Guy. You know how he can be." He shifted his weight, pivoting to look out over the crowd gathering across from them. "Besides, he doesn't tend to leave anything intact after the fact and we'll need whatever we can get our hands on to track these guys."

"Other Guy?" Skye mouthed to Fitz and Simmons. Fitz just looked thoroughly confused by the whole exchange, his brow furrowed comically and Simmons shrugged before digging back into her bag for god knows what.

Romanoff's shoulders drooped the tiniest bit in relief though and she finished reloading. So, there was something out there that made even the invincible, supernaturally calm Black Widow nervous? Skye pretty much figured that meant she should be downright terrified of this "Other Guy" then. Just to be safe.

"Awesome," Tripp said, still watching his little avenue for any sign of enemies trying to flank the group. "So, we talking choppers? Airstrike? An army of Iron Men?"

"Let's just say a god owes me a favor."

That got all four of the more junior ex-Shield agents staring at him again. May just raised an eyebrow in interest. Gods generally meant Asgardian. And there was a big blond Asgardian that also happened to be a resident Avenger. Of course that was assuming she was even coming close to what Captain America was hinting at.

Before Skye could come up with a nice, painfully direct way to ask him to clarify...like...a lot of that statement though, Captain America was flinging his shield forward again, ricocheting it twice off Centipede soldiers and then catching it mid flight to hammer one of the bipedal death bots. After that he was gone, lost in the maze of containers and industrial equipment and wrecking holy havok on the assembled Hydra forces.

To Skye's left May wasn't watching him though, her eyes instead on their intrepid leader. "He still doesn't know, does he?" she asked quietly. "He's…not really gonna be happy to see you, is he?"

Coulson ran a hand over his face before glancing up at the sky. "To put it mildly." Most of the junior agents looked up too when his gaze didn't come back down. What once was a smattering of fluffy clouds had begun to turn darker. And weirdly, the clouds seemed to be starting to move. "This is really not how I wanted to do this." Coulson looked back at May and tried to smile. It came out rather weakly. "It'll be fine though. He's a good guy. How bad could it be?"

"He thought his brother had killed you," Romanoff supplied.

The senior agent blew out a breath, still staring up.

Skye raised her hand. "Can someone fill the peanut gallery in on what's about to happen?" Everybody thoroughly ignored her. "Yoohoo. Inquiring minds want to know." Everyone but Romanoff was still watching the sky, she was watching Skye and smirking. Then she coolly double tapped three approaching Hydra soldiers between the eyes.

Clouds were rolling in fast now, seeming to materialize out of nothing as they swirled and obscured the sun. It had been far from a cloudless day before, but those had been few and far between this far north. Whatever this was that was going on certainly wasn't natural. Dark at first a pale light began piercing them here and there, glowing from somewhere within the swirling mass. Then another, bluer light joined it. And then another warm orangish-pink one, all swirling within the intensifying clouds.

And then lighting pierced the sky, arcing loudly across the faces of the clouds.

"Ummm…" Coulson said, dragging Skye and Simmons down with him, "We might want to duck for this next part."

The sky exploded, the clouds punching down violently as a solid mass as the swirling colors coalesced at their center, slamming into the ground at the center of the enemy group in the storage yard hard enough to send dust and small debris flying through the air and lowering visibility down to nothing.

Again lightning crackled, snaking down from above, but this time playing over the ground as it flashed down over and over and over again. The two robots nearest the ex-Shield team practically exploded when one bolt shot down, arcing between the two. Several more at the periphery of Skye's view also collapsed or were thrown violently away as electricity coursed through them.

As suddenly as it began the clouds were suddenly sucked back up, soaring as a column back into the sky and clearing the dust choked battlefield to reveal the tallest man Skye had ever seen. A very large, very blonde, very dreamy man. With an equally large hammer.

"My name," the Asgardian bellowed, pointing a giant hammer at the assembled forces around him, "is Thor, son of Odin, Prince of Asgard. Lay down your weapons and on my honor no harm will befall you."

"Nice entrance," was all Skye could think to say. She was still too stunned to even be reveling in the latest meeting with an Avenger.

That would undoubtedly come later.

Beside her Fitz was mouthing something about it being "brilliant". Her other side was notoriously quiet. Romanoff was gone. She hadn't even stuck around for the light show.

Then a Centipede augmented trooper tried to cold cock the Norse thunder deity from behind and was promptly knocked twenty yards and through a sturdy metal shipping container. Thor was left looking at Skye's team leader. Or maybe glaring was more the correct term. Either way he didn't look particularly overjoyed.

"Son of Coul!" he roared, pointing at the older agent with his hammer. "I would have words!"

Coulson very visibly flinched at that, sending a weak wave back toward the Asgardian demi-god.

Luckily the enemy opened fire again, bullets whizzing in from several angles and distracting the upset Avenger. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled and stuff started getting smashed into atom sized bits.

All but ignored in the wake of Thor and Captain America May arched an eyebrow yet again at Coulson. It almost gave off an I-told-you-so vibe. Coulson stared back at her for a second before shrugging. "I'm sure it'll be fine," he finally said, trying to sound sure of himself. "I mean he really is just a big teddy bear when it comes to…"

The giant spider tank went flying past their position, its front half completely caved in before it rammed into a line of trucks, taking them with it. Thor's giant hammer went whistling back past them a half second later.

"Yeah. Real cuddly," was all May said.

Coulson just swallowed. Hard.

Skye just smiled at the absurdity of the whole thing. And the awesomeness.