Gibbs drove toward Ghost Street, Rogers in the front seat and McGee, Torres, and Kate in the back. They were driving the car Torres and Kate had taken to the cabin, having left the other two cars, one along an abandoned road and the other in a supermarket parking lot.

"What do you know about Ghost Street?" Rogers asked Kate, twisting around in the seat to meet her gaze.

"Just that there's a connection to the roots of SHIELD," Kate said. "I never knew much about it, other than that. I know Barnes spends time there, after missions, before he's recalled for reconditioning."

"Enough time where he became its ghost?" McGee asked.

Grimly, Kate nodded. "From what I know, Barnes has been wandering Ghost Street since he's been operating over here. I remember hearing the stories about him when I first came to DC to join the Secret Service. Never thought they were real, until he took me there."

"Romanoff mentioned Ghost Street was haunted by the ghost of a WWII vet," Rogers said. "But I've never been there."

"Torres, what do you know?" Gibbs asked, glancing in the rearview mirror as he increased their speed.

"Because Ghost Street is abandoned, SHIELD uses some of the old buildings for drop-off points and other covert meetings," Torres answered. "And where SHIELD is, HYDRA is. We're their shadow. I know there is a research lab based on the premises, to study the effects of the gravitational anomalies. But because of the reports of strange things happening on Ghost Street, no one looks too hard if something goes foul."

"Until Captain Morris," McGee said. "And NCIS."

Torres nodded. "I don't know much else, beside that the anomalies have been growing stronger and more frequent over the past year."

"The Convergence," Gibbs said.

"What?" Rogers asked, glancing over at him.

"The Convergence," Gibbs repeated. "Odin mentioned it when I was last in Asgard. It's when the Nine Realms all align or something like that. He said it dissolves boundaries between the worlds."

"The worlds?" Torres repeated, furrowing his brow.

"Asgard, earth, Jotunheim," Gibbs began, frowning. "He didn't list the rest."

"So we know that Ghost Street is somehow important to Insight and Blackout," Rogers said. "And that the Bradendale Mall also holds significance. We just don't know what, or why."

"We'll find out," Gibbs said grimly. "We will find out."

****

Ghost Street was just as empty as it had been when Kate had blown a hole in Captain Morris' head, not that long ago. She felt a spasm of guilt, thinking about killing a Navy Captain, whose death, caused by anyone else, she would have formerly been charged with investigating in order to find and bring to justice his killer.

In this case, his killer was her.

Gibbs pulled into the side alley Kate and Loki had woken up in, after falling out the window and into that strange other realm, where they had encountered the crimson power that now coiled inside her, restless and waiting for something. She had felt it burn, earlier, but then it had faded again. Gibbs shut the engine off and they all climbed out, Torres, McGee, and Gibbs drawing their pistols as Rogers and Kate got their shield and sniper rifle out of the trunk.

"I don't like this," McGee muttered. "We're too close to SHIELD."

"We have to figure this out," Rogers said to him, looking serious. "And that means getting close to SHIELD."

Silently, they entered the lobby of the building Morris had been shot in front of. Torres had marked this building as one of SHIELD's fronts, which had been decommissioned after the shooting. NCIS had gotten involved, had gotten too close, and Kate knew that Loki unsettled both SHIELD and HYDRA – hence, they had pulled the plug and moved locations. INTEL had managed to get their hands on a sample of the god's blood, after his brief stay in a SHIELD detention cell, and they were disturbed by the differences, by the potential.

After all, this was the very same being who had singlehandedly taken out the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility. They were right to be scared.

Fortunately, SHIELD kept no cameras on Ghost Street. They didn't want anyone finding them, getting access to them, and unveiling secrets. "They like to keep their list of targets short," Torres had said. "Unlike HYDRA. We've got a lot of names. A lot of people." He had paused then. "If we don't stop them, there will be a lot of bodies in the fallout."

Torres led the way up the stairs, prying the boards off the doorway leading to the second floor, allowing them to enter. The place was dusty but empty, and it didn't take long for them to set up a temporary and basic camp. McGee managed to find a power plug that worked and began to charge up his nearly dead laptop, getting instantly back to work on the files. Oh, how Kate had missed watching his fingers fly across the keyboard, working his practical magic.

Kate perched herself in the boarded up window overlooking the street, peering through the slit between two of the boards. She held her rifle easily, her eyes flicking over the area and calculating the distances between potential points of attack.

"They trained you to be a sniper."

Kate looked up to see Gibbs standing behind her, his gaze impassive. "Yeah," she nodded. "They did. Ironic, huh? The weapon that ended my time at NCIS became my life."

Gibbs held out his hands and she placed the rifle across his palms after only a second of hesitation. He examined the weapon with a critical eye, handling it with all the familiarity she would expect from a Marine sniper from Desert Storm.

"A good rifle," he said at last, giving it back to her. "Custom made?"

"Yeah," Kate affirmed. "Vibranium coating, and able to fire both regular and explosive bullets. I have a contact who deals in alien and other abnormal tech that INTEL linked me up with. He supplies me with my stuff."

Movement outside the window caught Kate's eye and she glanced down to see a battered old van pulling up in front of the building. She straightened as Gibbs stepped closer, the two of them watching as the van stopped and three people clambered out of the car.

"Three possible hostiles, before the building," Kate called quietly to the others. "Two females, one male."

"Those aren't hostiles," Gibbs said, narrowing his eyes. "It's Foster and her assistants."

"Thor's girlfriend?" McGee queried, looking up from his laptop. "I thought she was working with SHIELD now."

"She is," Gibbs said. "What is she doing here?"

"They're entering the building," Kate said warningly. Torres had already taken up a position by the entrance, holding his gun down before him. She glanced at Gibbs. "What's the play?"

"Torres, Rogers, go down and meet them," Gibbs directed, placing his hand on his holstered gun. "Frisk them and bring them up here."

Torres eased down the stairs, the captain following behind him. Kate rested her sniper rifle butt on the ground as she stood, her shoulders tense. McGee continued working, his forehead creasing with that line she had once known so well.

"What you got?" she asked the computer nerd.

"Okay, remember how the assassin, Jacklin, was supposed to sync up with that satellite Bishop destroyed?" McGee said. Gibbs nodded. "Insight can't launch without that satellite. And they don't have the satellite ready – they won't, not for a bit. So we have some time to finish decrypting these files and take down Insight and Blackout."

"How much time?" Kate asked.

"A week?" McGee guessed. "Not completely sure, but as of a couple days ago, it wasn't close to being ready."

"Have you found out what Bradendale is, yet?" Gibbs asked.

McGee shook his head. "Not yet."

Torres and Rogers reentered the room, pushing a surprised Jane, Darcy, and Ian before them. "Foster said Romanoff told her to come here," Rogers said grimly.

"Can we trust Romanoff?" Gibbs inquired.

"I don't know," Rogers said. "I'd like to think so, but she has been part of SHIELD for so long."

"The best of SHIELD all has a little HYDRA inside them," Torres said. "Even if it's only their shadow. And Natasha Romanoff isn't exactly a clear cut character. Her past is shady, at best. I wouldn't put it past her to be full out HYDRA."

"Knowingly, she wouldn't," Rogers asserted. "I've worked with her for the best two years. She has earned some of my trust. But you said there are many in SHIELD who don't know their true master is HYDRA."

"Agent Gibbs," Jane said shakily, glancing from Rogers to Kate to Gibbs. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Why did Romanoff send you here?" Gibbs asked her.

"I told her that my instruments had picked up an energy discharge that matched up with my findings in Puente Antiguo," Jane said, bravely meeting Gibbs' eyes. "In short, they detected an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, like the Bifrost. So I sent her to the coordinates."

The cabin.

"Agent Romanoff told me to meet her here," Jane continued. "So here we are."

Ian kept quiet, looking a bit intimidated by Torres' pistol, which he still held casually by his side, and Kate's sniper rifle. But Darcy glanced at Rogers with an incredulous glance. "You're Captain America, right?" she asked. "Dang. You look good for a guy who was frozen for a hundred years."

"It was seventy," Rogers corrected quietly.

"Why did SHIELD make you all enemies of the state?" Jane asked. "What did you do?"

There was silence after her question, as Gibbs stared at the astrophysicist. The tension in the air was palpable as they waited to find out if the NCIS agent would deem Jane worthy of the answer to that question.

"We found out SHIELD is really HYDRA," Gibbs said eventually, causing a release in the tension. "And that they plan on preemptively striking against those that might form a threat, now or in the future."

Jane stared at Gibbs for a moment, her eyes wide. Then she took a deep breath. "How can I help?"

****

Romanoff stood before a rustic log cabin, gazing down at the Bifrost markings. Jane Foster had been right, and most certainly the fugitives had been here – at the very least, Loki and Thor had been here. But now the premises were deserted.

She had already noted the recent tire tracks belonging to three separate cars. But no cars were there now. So not all had gone to Asgard. At least three had remained behind and had left shortly before.

Taking out her phone, Romanoff dialed Rumlow and held the phone to her ear, flicking her eyes over the area. "Yeah, so I found where the fugitives were," she said when Rumlow answered. "A remote cabin, in the woods of Virginia. There are markings left behind by the Bifrost. They must have all gone up to Asgard."

Rumlow cursed. "Damn them. We'll get them yet, though. Good work, Romanoff." The line clicked and Romanoff slid her phone back into the pouch on her belt, crossing her arms. He hadn't needed to know everything. Sometimes, following orders to the letter was overrated.

I've got a lot of red in my ledger. New York got rid of some. Time to wipe out the rest. And this time, I will find out for sure if my targets are guilty before turning them over.

Time to meet Jane Foster on Ghost Street to continue her search.