The grenade went off a second before it would have killed Tony DiNozzo.

Tony dove into a doorway as the grenade exploded, sending shrapnel hurtling through the hallway. Wincing, he felt shards pepper his bulletproof vest.

"DiNozzo!" the voice of STRIKE leader Agent Brock Rumlow came in over his earpiece. "Is the corridor clear yet?"

"Grenade just went off," DiNozzo reported. "I'm about to check."

"Hurry it up," Rumlow snapped in his ear. "We need to get that disk before FLAME destroys it!"

"Copy that," Tony grunted. Rising to his feet, he felt Agent Ellie Bishop tap his shoulder from behind him, her rifle in her hand, and he moved out. He surveyed the blast scene, eyes narrowed in the dim light. Scorch marks and dented patterned the walls, but there was no significant damage. However, there were still enemies up ahead.

Opening fire, the loud sounds of bullets exploding out of the muzzles of the rifles filled the air as the two newest members to the STRIKE team cleared the passageway of the terrorists associated with FLAME. As the enemy gunfire stopped flying towards them, DiNozzo took a deep breath. "Hallway cleared, Rumlow."

"The captain's coming your way," Rumlow answered. "Romanoff's with him. Accompany them when they reach your position."

DiNozzo gestured to Bishop and they both moved down the corridor, rifles at the ready. They passed the dead bodies of the FLAME terrorists and entered a mostly empty room, occupied by only a table and two chairs. A corridor to the left led out of sight.

DiNozzo turned right; Bishop turned left. Both scanned the room with their rifles up and found no one.

"Clear," Bishop said.

"Clear," DiNozzo echoed, glancing at the dark corridor. "Where do you think the terrorists are? Perhaps waiting to throw us a surprise party?"

"FLAME doesn't throw parties, Agent DiNozzo." The familiar female voice caused both agents to turn towards the hallway from where they had come. "They do, however, like giving us reasons to hold funerals."

Agent Natasha Romanoff and Captain Steve Rogers entered the room via the recently cleared hallway. A quick glance around the room satisfied them as to its being empty of humans.

"No sign of the disk yet," Rogers told them. "This is the last unsearched wing of the building."

"How do you want to proceed?" Bishop asked.

Rogers pointed to the corridor. "Romanoff and I will lead, you two follow. According to the rough outline Fury was able to get us of the building, the room on the other side of this hallway is the best place for the disk to be kept out of this wing. We'll go left on entering, you go right."

DiNozzo, Romanoff, and Bishop all gave curt nods of understanding and the four moved out.

Watching Romanoff's straight red hair in front of him, DiNozzo felt adrenaline race through his veins. He had once thought working an NCIS case was the most excitement he could find on a case, especially after all the escapades he'd been through. But working for STRIKE had taught him there was a whole other level of adrenaline.

Gibbs wasn't on the STRIKE team, however, and neither was McGee. Working under Rumlow and Rogers was very strange after years of working for the former Marine. But the two SHIELD agents who had been killed by a brilliant beam of photons about five months ago had left a gap on the team, and Fury had requested that Bishop and DiNozzo fill it. Vance had authorized the mission, with the statement, "Inter-agency cooperation between NCIS and SHIELD is very rare."

The dark corridor brightened as it spilled out into a circular room. Rogers and Romanoff instantly went left, DiNozzo leading off right with Bishop on his six. Together, all four checked the space and found five people standing around an antique wooden desk at the far end of the room.

"Halt, SHIELD!" the one in the middle, a man, called. "Or you will all die!"

The four Avengers regarded the man for a second. "How so?" DiNozzo called back. "Explosion, stab wound, getting our faces melted off...."

"Tony, shut up," Romanoff murmured.

"Yes, Nat," DiNozzo responded, lifting an eyebrow at her.

"This whole room is wired with explosives!" the man shouted. "Another move and I blow all of us to bits!"

"Explosion, then," DiNozzo muttered. "Not what I would have picked."

"What do you want?" Rogers asked, his tone low.

The man's eyes gleamed. "For one of you to remain as hostage." He pointed to Bishop. "Her."

"No," DiNozzo said. "Take me. Or the Captain. But not her."

"Tony," Bishop said, but he ignored her. Loki will kill me if I let anything happen to her while he's gone. Besides, she's my partner. I will not let them take her.

"We're not trading," he said. "Not her for us."

"This is non-negotiable!" the man insisted, his voice rising in pitch. "Leave the blonde girl, back out slowly, weapons aimed at the ground."

"It's not a dead-man's switch," Romanoff said, her voice so low it could only be heard in their coms. "The controller's in his right hand, needs retinal scan to be activated."

"Are we in agreeance, then?" Bishop asked, loud enough for the terrorists to hear her.

"Yes," Rogers said, and hurled his shield.

The projectile slammed into the man's wrist, causing him to drop the device. Romanoff leapt forward, diving for the activator as Bishop and DiNozzo opened fire on the others as they reached for their weapons. The shield returned to Rogers' hand as Romanoff wrestled for the device with the man, punching him as he tried to twist her arm in order to look into the device's scanner.

DiNozzo knocked him in the head with the butt of his rifle, causing him to slump back and loosen his grip on the former Russian spy.

Romanoff pocketed the device as Bishop headed around the desk, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. After rummaging around the desk for a moment, she crouched down, and pulled a thin safe from a shelf under the desk's top. "The disk must be inside this."

"We have to make sure," Romanoff said. "Fury was very insistent that we get this thing back."

"What's on it?" DiNozzo asked curiously.

"He didn't care to divulge," Romanoff said. "Which means it's really big."

Bishop laid the safe on the desk's top and the two women examined it. It was an old-fashioned safe, a combination lock on it. Reaching into her belt, the Russian placed a small explosive on the top and the four Avengers retreated.

With a bit of smoke and a pop, the safe door opened and Bishop looked inside. Triumphantly, she pulled out the disk. "Target secured," she said.

****

This section of the code was difficult.

McGee frowned at the line of code, then rewrote it before slowly continuing on. This had to be perfect. Tony Stark had recommended him to Fury for this job, and he could not let Iron Man down.

His fingers flew across the keys as the commands he needed to write came into his brain. The code grew as everything fell into place.

McGee didn't have the clearance to know much about this project, but he did know that he wasn't allowed access to the completed project. He only had one section of the code.

All he knew was that his section of the code was supposed to instruct an interface in transferring information between two devices.

****

Gibbs stood in Fury's office, staring out the window. A tired but victorious Bishop had just handed the disk to the director of SHIELD before walking out with Rogers, Romanoff, and DiNozzo, DiNozzo and Rogers in the middle of a discussion.

"So, you said you wouldn't trade lives, yet you'd offer them mine?" Captain America was asking the NCIS agent, with a slight grin.

DiNozzo shrugged. "Hey, I knew you'd be up for it."

"More like you knew Loki wouldn't kill you over the outcome."

"Loki would never kill me," DiNozzo protested. "The guy looks up to me. I'm practically his older brother. I set an example for him. He's still learning our ways, and I have to demonstrate how to act here."

"That explains everything," Rogers deadpanned. "Explains why he was willing to sacrifice his brother to get what he wanted."

"I resent the implications of that," DiNozzo stated as the door to the office shut behind them.

Silence fell across the office as Gibbs continued looking out the window. Fury examined the disk over at his desk, then placed it in a locked drawer and walked over to the window to stand beside the former Marine.

"What's on the disk?" Gibbs asked.

"Classified," Fury answered.

"When are you going to find replacements for Mars and Connor on STRIKE so my agents can be relieved?"

"DiNozzo and Bishop are doing a fine job filling in for them," Fury said. "They are the replacements."

Gibbs gave Fury a look. "Fury, they are still my agents."

"They're more than that now," the director said, looking out at the view. "DiNozzo and Bishop are Avengers. As such, they have certain duties to fulfill." He cast a glance at Gibbs. "Besides, with your team working alongside SHIELD, it's given you time to chase down your phantom agent."

Gibbs felt his fingers curl into fists. Agent Sniper. Kate Todd. Yes, he had had the opportunity to chase any lead he could find, but they mostly wound up nowhere. He had dug through all of the FBI's files, called in a favor from the CIA, and had examined the SHIELD files he was allowed to see – and some he was not that he had gained access to anyway. But he was no closer to finding her. Her trail was fragmented and faded at best.

He did know that her partner, the FBI's ghost assassin, was just as capable and deadly as Kate, if not more so.

"You send my team back to the Navy Yard," Gibbs told Fury. "You tell them they're on leave this afternoon. Tomorrow, they're back in my squad room."

As the NCIS agent turned to leave, Fury commented, "That's not your decision, Gibbs."

"Tomorrow, Fury." Before the director could respond, his office door closed and Gibbs was gone. When the director turned around, there was no sign of the former Marine.

/**/

AHHHHHH!

I'm so excited to finally post this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it! Leave a vote and let me know what you thought!

What do you think of where DiNozzo and Bishop have been working? About McGee's project? And Gibbs' pursuit? Excited to see what Loki's been up to?

My writer's discord is finally up! If you want to join and talk writing, Marvel, NCIS, etc., here's the link!

https://discord.gg/MGQVWTE

Skylar Wittenborn