The team has to take an Agent Shaw to the Hub with the information he collected. The others tried offering help with hacking into the information, but Coulson calls them off.

"The information is classified, Level 8." Coulson tells them and they all understand and he leaves them. "He can just shut us out of the process like that?" Skye asks them since she doesn't know about clearance levels.

"He did say the mission was Level 8." Ava states to her. "And everyone besides Peter aren't." She explains.

"What clearance does he have?" Skye wonders and nobody is quite sure themselves.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s whole structure is based on the hierarchy and compartmentalization of intelligence. Every Agent can't have the intel on every mission. It makes the entire organization vulnerable." Ward tell her.

"The way we do things here, and at the Hub are different ways." Peter explains as he enters the room while reading his science book.

"The Hub? What's the Hub?" Skye asks.

-

The Hub, a entire base similar to the Raft. One of the many S.H.I.E.L.D. bases around the world. "Didn't realize Big Brother was this big." Skye states seeing everything.

"Oh, if you think this is big, you should see the Triskelion." Ava replies to her.

"Why does everyone dress the same here?" Skye wonders and nobody really knows why.

"Agent Sitwell." Coulson greets the agent approaching them. "Good to see you feeling better. Agent Hand's waiting for you and Agent S in the situation room." Sitwell tells them.

"And she doesn't like to wait." Coulson states and they head for the room. "Your Level 7s can join us in the briefing." Sitwell tells them as they scan their faces and head into the situation room.

"Victoria Hand...is here." Fitz-Simmons both say. "We should probably head over to the tech corridor." Fitz says and they both head off leaving Ava and Skye.

"I don't think the Hub likes me here." Skye tells Ava.

-

In the Situation room, Coulson, Peter and May and Ward meet up with agent Hand. "Agent Coulson, Agent S." Hand greets them both. "Nice to put a mask and face to the names." She states since Peter is still wearing his mask since a handful of Level 7 agents know him.

"Likewise. You already know S, these are Agents May and Ward." Coulson introduces them to Hand. "Well, now we've gotten that over with, here's what you can know. The intel you recovered from Agent Shaw tells us that a separatist group from South Ossetia has built a weapon called Ezbiitometer." Hand tells them.

"The overkill device?" Peter asks her. "A little dramatic for my taste. I imagine something was lost in translating." Hand tells him. "We've intercepted chatter that tells us they plan to use the weapon in the next 24 hrs to declare their independence from Russia And Georgia." She explains and pulls up a photo of the device, which sorta just looks like an electronic squid.

"We believe it creates sonic vibrations powerful enough to trigger weapons from a great distance, anything from the missiles on a helicopter to a nuclear warhead sitting in its silo." Hand informs them on it all.

"So we go in before they can use our weapons against us?" Coulson asks Hand.

"That's why I need a 3-man team to sneak across the disputed border undetected, break into the separatist stronghold, and sizable the weapon before they decide to use it." Hand tells them on the plan. "And you have three people who fit the part." She says and Coulson looks to Ward, May and Peter.

"Not a problem. I was I Georgia during the '08. I still have some contacts on the south Ossetian border." Ward tells her.

"And you'll have to use them. But we don't have specs in the device, so I need someone on the team who can identify and dismantle it onsite. And since we don't know where it's belong hidden, we need a smaller agent." Hand explains and they realize it's not May and Peter they want.

"Please tell me you don't mean..." Peter is silently begging that she isn't saying she needs Fitz and Ava on the mission.

"I think she does." Coulson says.

They meet back up with the others and sees Fitz having some problems with the automatic doors. "This isn't gonna go well." Ward says and Peter doesn't know how he feels of Ava going out herself.

-

They head back to the bus so they can get what they need. As of now Ava is packing everything she might need for the mission, being some clothes, gear she might need, ad her amulet. "I just don't understand why they would ask for me to do this, and not you." Ava states since it seems like a serious mission.

"Maybe they're staring to see you as a real agent." Peter says, trying to reassure her.

May is talking to Ward and Fitz about what he needs to do. "You need to disable the overkill device by 0600 tomorrow in order to separatist attack once your signal S.H.I.E.L.D., the extraction team will get you all out." May assures the two.

"And take care of Ava, please. Peter's a little cautious about letting her go out by herself." Coulson asks the two and they agree to look after her for him.

They start leaving the Bus and Peter still doesn't feel like it's too early, sending her off without him. "Shouldn't you be going with her?" Skye asks Peter as she joins him.

"The people behind all of the operations are the best of the best. Yet again, they're the same people who thought I didn't need help going up against a guy wearing military grade armor and had a flying glider. But they know what they're doing." Peter assures her and himself.

-

The team hides in the Caucasus mountains as they drive a truck to the location while trying to get Fitz to shut up. "Do you have the beacon?" Ward asks Fitz.

"Yeah, of course I do." Fitz says and hands it to him.

"Listen, my contract's Uri Dubrovsky. We'll pay him to get across the border." Ward tells the two of them. "We go back, but he doesn't like new people, or kids, so keep your mouths shut and your heads down." He warns them as they enter the location and see it's a bar.

Ward and the man at the bar get into a conversation in Russian which, neither of them understand, and it seems his friend is dead and the men aim weapons at them. "You have no friends here." He states to Ward.

"Great. Peter's gonna kill me." Ava mumbles to herself.

-

Back on the Bus, Simmons is still nervous about Fitz being out there and wonders if he'll be okay. "Well, Agent May is Level 7. Maybe she can give us an update on their status." Skye states and May just looks at her.

"Does that mean you do know something, and you can't tell us, or you don't know?" Skye asks her.

"We know what we're supposed to know." May tells her and they get evacuated from the lab and Skye wonders if Peter might know something and goes to find him.

-

Peter has decided to take his fear out on the nearest training equipment he had in his training room and is beating the life out of it. Peter was just about to give up, when thoughts of Ava being in trouble and he wasn't there to help came back into his mind and he just keeps beating the bag. That us until he beaten a hole into it.

"Wow, the bag must seriously owe you money for you to beat it that badly." Skye states to him and Peter just notices her in the doorway.

"Welcome to my personal training room. Director Fury gave it to me, I've got one in every S.H.I.E.L.D. base on earth." Peter tells her while grabbing a towel to wipe off the sweat and removes his workout shirt and Skye sees all of his scars and scratches all over his back.

"How long have you said you were part of S.H.I.E.L.D. again?" Skye wonders while he's taking a drink of water. "Most of my life. Can't remember a day I wasn't part of it." Peter tells her and to her that means he got those scars on missions for S.H.I.E.L.D.

"If you're wondering, most of them are from freaks with powers. The scar across my back came from the Green Goblin during our last encounter before..." Peter stops himself from continuing as he thinks about Gwen. "Nothing, did you want something, or just wanted to see where Agent S hangs his mask?" He changes the subject.

"Look, I know you guys have this way and are okay with being in the dark about what's going on, but I'm not okay with it. I need answers, and I have a feeling you're not okay with it." Skye tells him and she's right. Ever since Ava left, he's been anxious to figure out if she's okay.

"Can't you get information about them?" Skye wonders.

"I can, but I can't tell you. I got that talk from Fury too many times." Peter explains, but he gets an idea. "But if another Level-8 Agent tells you with yer aces card, it won't be on my head." Peter tells her and she likes the way he's thinking.

-

"It must feel nice to be off that plane." Hand tells Coulson. "I understand you're recovering."

"Well, I only know what I've read." She says. "Seems Fury has a soft spot for you and Agent S."

"What can I say? Seems Fury has a small spot in his heart him." Coulson replies.

"All I'm saying is it must feel nice being back in the big leagues."

"Three of my agents are the key to your whole operation, my nephew is S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best agent. I never left the bigs."

"Let's hope they're as good as you think they are." She says.

-

Ava, Ward and Fitz are handcuffed in the back room waiting for someone to show up. "Why haven't they killed us yet?" Fitz asks Ward while Ava is working on getting herself free from the handcuffs.

"I mean, I'm happy that they haven't done it yet, but why?" He keeps asking them.

"They're waiting for their boss, so before he gets here, we need a plan." Ward explains. "How long can you hold your breath underwater?" He asks the two of them.

"I don't know." Fitz admits.

"Probably somewhere around 50 seconds to a minute." Ava guesses.

"You familiar with the term slam and cram?" Ward asks of them.

"No, and I don't think I want to be." Fitz tells him.

"Basically means losing a finger." Ava explains, and he was right. He didn't want to know.

"How attached are you to your pinky?" Ward asks him.

"Very, very attached, and let me be clear. Any plan that involves even one of those scenarios isn't gonna work for me." Fitz states when the men and their boss comes in to greet them.

"I hear you're looking for your friend Uri. And Uri was friends with separatists." The woman boss explains. "Are you separatists?" She asks.

"No. Were definitely here to stop them." Ava answers for them.

"If you could help us across the border..." Ward was saying when getting interrupted by people cheering to the game.

"You're wasting my time, so let me be clear. You've given me no reason to trust you. And trust is everything to me." She says while raising the gun to his head.

"Does the name S mean anything to you?" Ava asks, knowing they're going to die so it was worth a shot.

The woman seems to stop and looks towards Ava. "You know S?" She asks.

"Yeah, he's my...Well, technically he's my boss." Ava admits.

"Come with me." She says and they uncuff them all.

She brings them to her office that seems no bigger than the rest of the place. "S saved me and some of my boys a few years back. Told him that if he ever needed help, don't hesitate to ask. If I do this, we even?" She asks referring to Ava.

"I will tell him you relayed your debt." Ava promises and she provides them transportation.

-

The three are inside a carton truck going across the boarder. "Nice work back there." Ward congrats Ava.

"Well, Peter did always talk about past missions. That and I was a huge fan of his, Fury gave me access to most of his missions that I had access to." Ava says as they hear shouting and the truck comes to a stop.

"Stay here." Ward says when he hears gunshots. "Okay. Maybe we'll all stay here."

Outside, men start approaching the truck, when two small devices get thrown out and explode sending the men back.

"Time to go before more birder patrol find us." Ward says and they leave off the road and start running.

-

Back at the Hub, Peter and Skye have come up with a plan to plant a usb stick to get information on the mission.

"Okay, you have the flash drive. I reprogrammed it with a decoy crawler. It'll use my browser history to simulate my usual online activity, so while S.H.I.E.L.D. thinks I'm trolling reddit and Facebook with the laptop you gave me-" Skye was going on until Peter interrupted her.

"You'll be hacking into the files to see how the mission is going. This was my plan, I know what I'm doing." Peter tells her as he starts to hack into the mainframe when a certain agent catches him.

"Agent S?" Sitwell asks and Peter sees him.

"Oh, Agent Sitwell. Did the break room run out of donuts?" Peter asks while he keeps working.

"What are you doing?" Sitwell asks him.

Peter stops working and remembers his training with Natasha about lying. Don't give too much information, and don't give too little information. "Just updating the S.H.I.E.L.D. mainframe and the firewalls. Don't want anyone like the Rising Tide to keep hacking in now, do we?" Peter asks him.

"This late?" Sitwell keeps questioning him.

"You remember Fury's orders. I'm not allowed to get bored after what I did the last time I was bored." Peter reminds him.

"You have half of the people here nightmares." Sitwell reminds him.

Peter just laughs at remembering what he did. Let's just say you wouldn't imagine it even if you tried.

"It was worth the scolding Fury gave me." Peter states.

"Do you have authority to get into that control panel?" Sitwell asks.

"Okay, you know what, let's get this over with." Peter mumbles before taking his Night-Night gun out and shooting Sitwell.

He then proceeds with the plan and leaves to see Skye looking at him shocked.

"What?" Peter asks her.

"That was incredibly done." Skye compliments. "How do you know to lie that well?"

Peter smirks at her. "You don't exactly get to be S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best Agent without knowing how to lie. Also, my aunt taught me how." Peter explains talking about Natasha, before leaving her to do her thing.

Brock Rumlow comes out of the corner and watches Peter walking away with a smug smile on his face. "I've got eyes on S. Do we engage the plan?" He asks into a communicator in his ear.

"Proceed with the plan." A voice confirms back to him.

Skye goes to a abandoned break room and starts to hack into the system to learn how the mission is going. While she was there, she also found some files that could lead her to her parents. But knowing she has a small window to find out about the mission before they start catching on to them.

She searches through the active missions file and finds their mission file and searches for their location and finds a mission of a 3 man team to enter the facility and they have an eight hour timeline...but no extraction plan.

"No extraction?" Skye asks when Coulson appears in front of her.

"Peter's not exactly subtle when he constantly hacks into Sitwell's account to find information." Coulson states. "What did I tell you?"

"You told me to trust the system." Skye reminds him. "And the system sent Ward, Ava and Fitz to die." She informs Coulson who looks shocked.

-

Ava, Fitz and Ward are in the middle of the road surrounded by a invisibility cloak that activates when shut. One of Peter's inventions after he read Harry Potter.

"Good day to be a rat." Fitz breaks the silence since they're uncomfortable. "I mean, there you are, minding your own business, spreading filth and disease, scavenging for grub worms or rotten fruit, when lo and behind, you see it. A prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich."

He goes on about his sandwich they has to get rid of so the guard dogs couldn't find them.

"With just a hint of pesto aioli." He finsihes.

"Fitz, I promise you. If you keep talking about the sandwich, I will claw out your tongue." Ava threatens him, never imagining she would miss morning training. But that's more durable than these two.

They start feeling the ground rumbling and see a truck approaching.

"Zip it up." Ward says and as soon as they do, the truck passes over them and the cloak attaches itself underneath the truck and they make their way to the base.

-

"I told you I'd get the information about your parents." Coulson tells Skye as they walk through the HUB.

"That's not what I was looking for. I was trying to find out what was happening with Ward, Ava and Fitz." Skye explains to him.

"That's a classification operation." Coulson replies to her.

"It's a suicide mission!" Skye informs him. "I saw it all. The troop placements, the aerial assault. Once Ward, Fitz and Ava disable that device, there's gonna be a huge attack in that compound, with no extraction plan, and you hid it from us."

Coulson takes her hand and leads her into a dark corridor where the cameras don't work. "I didn't hide anything from you. You don't have the clearance to know that." Coulson tells her.

"Is that really what S.H.I.E.L.D.'s all about?" Skye asks him. "Level 5s are more expendable than level 8? Is that all we are, just numbers?"

Coulson waits calmly for her to finish. "Are you done?" He asks her.

"Am I?

"If S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps secrets, it's for a good reason. You just hacked a Level-8 secure server, saw operational plans that you have no context for. If details get out, the whole operation could be compromised, lives could be lost." Coulson explains thinking about Peter's safety and how hard they worked to make sure everything would be able to hide his identity.

"I know, and last I checked, all of us care about Ava, Ward and Fitz. On the plane, you're always telling me to think outside the box, so I went off book because I was trying to watch their backs."

"Our team can go off book because there is a book. A hub. An organization watching our backs. You claim you want to be part of that, a Agent. Do you?" Coulson asks her. "Because someday, I may have to trust you with a secret, and I need to know you can keep it. Peter's one of the biggest secrets inside the organization, and you only know a fraction about him."

He tells her and starts walking away. "Can I ask you a question?" Skye asks him.

Coulson turns back around to face her.

"Did you know there was no extraction plan for them?" She asks.

Coulson thinks and he knows he was told there was a extraction planed for them. "That's classified." He says and leaves to talk to Hand.

-

At the weapon site, the truck carrying the team just arrived and they roll on out from underneath and stay hidden from the patrol guards. They sneak off to the side of the building where the weapon is being held.

"Okay, I'll call for the extraction." Ward tells them.

"Fitz, Get your peeping hole up." Ava tells him .

"It's called the looking glass." Fitz corrects her. "You'd probably say x-ray vision. But there are actually 5-band microwave antennae embedded in this sheet. Works more like a radar system." Fitz says.

As they're talking, Ward tries calling for the extraction and notices it's just a flashlight, there was no extraction planned.

Fitz sets up the window and sees there are two guards with weapons.

"I can take them easily." Ava assures them.

"Correction there are three guards." Fitz says and Ward looks to see Ava is gone.

Fitz keeps watching as the new guard starts fighting off the other two.

"Oh, my god, Ward. He's attacking the others." Fitz tells him.

"Why would he do that?" Ward wonders when the third guard comes up and opens the door to reveal Ava.

"I told you, I'd take care of them, didn't I?" Ava asks them.

"Ah. That makes sense now." Fitz says.

"You're becoming too much like Peter." Ward comments as they enter the facility.

They walk in and see some strange device that they believe is what they're here for.

Fitz taps its outer shell and sees its made out of normal steel material. "Core must be inside here. That's what's important about it." He explains to the others. "The piping around it just serves to amplify and direct the sound, to trigger munitions from a distance."

"Doesn't look like it could swat a fly, let alone take a jet out of the sky." Ava comments on it.

"Well, you should know better than anybody Agent Ayala. Looks can be deceiving." Fitz tells her while he opens up the core and they see what looks like one of Tony Stark's arc reactors but its glowing yellow and surrounded by wiring.

"This might take me a while." Fitz warns them,

"Well, we have ten minutes." Ward tells Fitz.

"I thought you'd say five." Fitz responds honestly and gets to work.

-

At the HUB, Hand just got a security breach that she recognized as Peter's work when Coulson enters the room.

"Agent Sitwell is in the infirmary again. Apparently, a certain agent rendered him unconscious." Hand informs Coulson.

"You know how Peter gets with his pranks, and how Sitwell doesn't trust the kid with a piece paper." Coulson says since that's why Peter likes pranking Sitwell. "I'll handle the matter internally."

"Tranquilizing An Agent doesn't seem to be his usual pranking M.O." Hand replies.

"You're right. But being told there's an extraction team in place when, in fact, there isn't. I'd like an explanation." Coulson says. "I'm Level 8, I'm entitled to information regarding the welfare of my team, and so does Peter. You should've told me."

"Seemed I didn't have to. And if I did, what would that have changed?" Hand asks him. "You yourself had designed dozens of operations like this. You know how this works."

"Usually with an extraction plan." Coulson reminds her.

"Barton, Romanoff, hell even S. They've never had an extraction plan." Hand says and Coulson remembers some of those missions where he feared Peter was injured or dead.

"They know that going in." Coulson states.

"Agent Fitz is unproven in the field, and knowing would've caused him to loose focus or courage. Agent Ayala has proven to be just as good as Peter, why would that disclose her from extraction?" Hand wonders.

"That should've been our call." Coulson tells Hand, angry at how he was lied to about his team. "Fury put Ayala in Peter's care. He decides if she's ready or not, she wanted to prove she was ready by taking this operation."

"I wasn't sure either of you would comply." Hand explains and she's lucky Peter hasn't heard the news yet. What strikes him as odd is he hasn't seen Peter in some time.

"Your team includes an electronically tagged non-agent who is notorious for leaking secrets, which reminds me. How did you get the information again?" She asks him.

"You know how Peter loves hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D. for fun. You remember him cracking the pentagon when he was eight?" Coulson reminds her. Peter got into so much trouble for that, but he says it was a wake up call for the pentagon since he could've cracked it in his sleep. "And I know what the safety of a thousand men is worth. I know the importance of taking the overkill device out of play. But I also know my men and what they're worth!"

"The decision to go in should have been theirs to make." Coulson states.

"Perhaps. But you need to trust the system, Agent Coulson." Hand says and walks away leaving Coulson to realize the faults in the system.

-

Back at the base, Wars offers to take over to Fitz so he and Ava have a chance to make it out since he learned there is no extraction.

"We wait for the extraction as planned." Fitz tells him and Ward decides to tell them.

"The extraction plan is a bust. Exfil team didn't make contract. Once we take this thing apart and I set odd the remote beacon, we're on our own." Ward tells them.

"We're not leaving." Ava says and Fitz agrees with her. They're both S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are here because they want to put their lives on the line. Even in the line of fire.

-

Back at the HUB, Skye tells May and Simmons that Coulson has said they're going in to save them. She tried finding Peter, but he wasn't anywhere to be found.

They head into the Bus and just before they take off, Peter walks onto the plane carrying a package.

"Hey, where were you?" Skye wonders.

"What do you mean? I was with you, then got called to talk with Fury for a few minutes." Peter tells her and he leaves to get into his suit.

Skye Just oooks confused since when last they spoke an hour had passed. She also remembers that he has a perfect memory so he can't just have forgotten.

-

Fitz pulls the final wire out and Ward activates the beacon meaning the strike team is not too far behind.

"Okay, we need to slip out of here brfyew they notice the device is powered down." Ward says and the alarms start blaring.

"I think they've noticed." Ava says with the alarms.

Fitz starts dozing the core to use it and disable their weapons, when he finishes, they start running when explosions start going off.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. has began the assault. We gotta move before they bring this compound down on us." Ward says.

Fitz starts using the weapon as guards come up and try shooting them and he destroys their weapons.

The ones without weapons, Ava takes down head on as more explosions go off.

They exit the compound only to be surrounded with dozens of men with weapons on all sides.

"If they don't, Peter's gonna kill me." Ava says since she promised to be safe and she's done everything but.

As they start surrendering, a dark shadow comes overhead and they look up to see the Bus and it uses its propellers to throw the men back and the doors open for Peter to shoot a web down for them to grab onto.

They grab onto the web and get pulled up as they take off.

-

Ava walks up and sees Peter with his arms crossed.

"Here we go." Ava says knowing the speech that's coming about how she wasn't ready for this.

"Nice job out there, Ava." Peter tells her shocking Ava.

"Wait, what?" Ava asks since she never thought that would be his first words.

"You kept your head without me, kept your team safe, shielded them." Peter recaps what she did.

"And you also agreed to go on this mission thinking you needed to prove something when I asked Fury to do something when I learn we were going to the HUB." Peter says and shows her a small package and hands it to her.

Ava takes the package and opens it to find a office S.H.I.E.L.D. badge inside. "What's this?" She asks her superior officer.

"It's the S.H.I.E.L.D. badge for Agent Ava Ayala." Peter tells her and Ava is shocked to see she's an official agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., not just a probation agent.

"Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Ayala." Peter congratulated her before leaving her be.