The world was falling apart at the seams—or at least, Steve's was as the team and Thor's friends gathered at the front of the palace with nothing to show for their search. Slowly, so slowly was the super soldier losing his mind about the situation that he had to turn away from the others, taking in deep breaths to calm down.

"I am sorry, my friend," Thor murmured, putting a hand on his shoulder, "I was so sure that they would be here."

"Yeah...I was, too."

"We still have back home to comb over, Cap. We'll find her," Tony said.

He nodded, but said nothing.

It seemed, really, as if he could feel nothing, too as the Asgardians led their horses over the bridge and towards the Observatory where Heimdall awaited their return. He dismounted and patted the coal black horse in farewell, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three watching with one in despair by their parting.

"Goodbye, Lady Natasha!" Fandral called, startling the assassin who winced in response. "It is with great reluctance that I allow you to walk away from me but fate has willed it so and who am I to question fate?"

"Quiet!" Hogun snapped.

"You're no fun."

Steve stepped forward at the same time Sif did and he offered his hand to which she shook it once.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"I hope you find your sister."

He inclined his head appreciatively and they all followed Thor into the dome to stand in front of Heimdall. The god of thunder nodded and he twisted the great sword, once again sending them into the cosmos before they landed on Earth where the sun was just rising and casting long shadows over the field they had been in before they left.

"Ah, home," Bruce sighed.

"Morning already?"

A strange black mark was under their feet but they thought nothing of it, all of them walking together to where they had left their own transportations. Steve suddenly pulled Tony back by the elbow to let the others pass.

"You're touchy today," he snarked before noticing the serious expression on his face.

"You can hack into S.H.I.E.L.D, can't you? Like you did before?"

"I'm insulted you have to ask."

"What happened with my doppelgänger—it has to mean something and I want to find out what."

Tony gave him a confused look.

"If he wasn't actually Loki, we could have something we need to look into here," Steve urged. "What I want to know is whether what he said is true and for that, I need your help."

"Cap, I don't think—"

"Stark. Please."

The billionaire gazed at him before slowly nodding.

"Since you begged—"

"I didn't beg."

"I'll help you. I'm curious to see where it'll lead."

"Where what will lead?"

"This chaotic mess we seem to be stuck in."

After the team got themselves cleaned up having gone straight to Asgard only hours following Willow's disappearance, they gathered in a conference room at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters per request of Director Fury. Maria Hill was there as well and Steve wasn't feeling all that pleasant towards either of them.

Fury sighed, pacing slowly in the front of the room.

"So the Tesseract is back on Asgard?"

"Where it belongs, yes," Thor replied.

"And the scepter? Is it there, too?"

"Cap's doppelgänger ran off with that," Tony chimed in, "so we just need to look around the city for another blond, Dorito-shaped, flat a—"

"Stop," Steve said warningly to which the man grinned.

"We have our best agents on hold to search the globe for Willow and Loki. I assume you'll be heading out as well?"

"As soon as we can." Natasha and Clint exchanged nods when Thor raised his hand.

"I'll come with you."

Steve cleared his throat.

"Tony and I will be staying back."

Everyone, including Tony, turned to look at him in confusion. He widened his eyes at the man who stared back at him blankly before snapping his fingers in realization.

"Right!" He said loudly. "We have a thing. To do...this one thing."

"Each oth—"

Clint coughed as Natasha roughly elbowed him in his stomach.

"We'll keep an eye out from here. You know, central point and everything." Tony shrugged with a "what-can-you-do" look as Fury raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you'd want to head off the STRIKE team. I'll let them know you're pulling out," Hill exclaimed, but Steve shook his head.

"It's alright, I'll talk to Agent Rumlow."

"I'm taking the first. We'll send updates out on the west coast. Dr. Banner, if you needed a ride..."

"I think I'll stick around for a little while," he replied, looking at Tony and Steve meaningfully. Agent Hill nodded and was about to walk out before the super soldier called out to her.

"Wait, is there anything...on Willow's suit?"

He had asked her earlier before the meeting, but he was hoping maybe the news was different as she looked down at the thin tablet in her hand. She swiped at it a few times before looking up with a shake of her head.

"Still disconnected. I'm sorry."

"We have a Quinjet prepped. Try to bring it back in one piece," Fury said to Natasha almost tiredly.

"No promises," the assassin glanced at Clint and Thor, "let's go."

Their departure served as a cue for the others to stand and Fury slipped out of the room, leaving the men to their own devices. Tony clapped his hands together once the Director was out of sight and turned to Steve and Bruce.

"Shall we get rockin', men?"

"I'll set up the communication system for Romanoff," Bruce said as they made their way to the building's laboratory.

Once they got there, the scientist moved over to the console as Tony took something from his pocket and inserted it into the mainframe.

"This shouldn't take long, Cap. We'll see how much we can dig up on your friend. In the meantime," Tony pulled out a small bag of almonds, "I'd really like to know who that doppelgänger of yours was and where he ran off to."

"If it wasn't Loki, do you think it could be another Asgardian?"

"A possibility. Loki was able to mimic you down to the baggy parts of your suit—which I'd love to refurbish for you, by the way—so I wouldn't rule it out."

"Do you think any other organization has the means to create imitation technology?"

Tony scoffed.

"Maybe if they weren't so busy sticking needles in rats. Even then, they probably wouldn't have the brain capacity to compete in Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader."

"In theory, if one did then we'd be in a boatload of trouble. Hill's retrieval team? Pretty sure they're searching for more than just Willow and Loki," Bruce muttered.

"Wouldn't the Director notify all of S.H.I.E.L.D. that the scepter is missing?" Steve asked as Tony popped an almond into his mouth.

"If you haven't noticed, the man is like a vault—he keeps secrets and he'll take them all to his grave. With the scepter gone, there's a high chance he'd want to recover it before officially slapping a MISSING label on it, so it would make sense that there's only a limited amount of people that know. Agent Hill and her team, for example."

"Cap," Bruce looked up from his screen, "if that doppelgänger was part of another operation, do you think what he said about your friend is true?"

Both of the men looked at Steve as he glanced down at his hands and back up with a weary sigh.

"I have to make sure."

"Fair enough. Where you off to?" Tony asked as he walked over to the doorway.

"Find the STRIKE team. I'll give them the go ahead. Keep me posted."

Tony saluted him and the super soldier meandered down the halls, slowly at first as he tried to gather his thoughts.

Willow not being on Asgard meant Thor was right—Earth was their best shot and Steve, now aware of the universe and the many beings that probably lived in it, was trying his best to stay hopeful. As he made his way through the building, not really knowing where to go to find the STRIKE team, he came across a control room. People sitting at computers reached from one side of the room to the other and there were two levels with huge screens on the front wall that showed different parts of the city.

He studied the screens for a moment when a hand touched his shoulder and he turned around, coming face to face with Agent Jasper Sitwell, one of the agents that worked with STRIKE. He was looking at him strangely, almost nervously as his eyes darted around before coming back to him.

"Captain Rogers." He stuck out his hand and Steve shook it, turning back to the monitors.

"Nice set up."

"You should see the one in Washington. If you're looking for Rumlow, him and his guys are in transportation."

"Thanks."

"No problem. Also, the scepter," he lowered his voice, "Dr. List was supposed to take it in this morning, but the complications we had with Fury pushed the agenda back."

Steve's brows rumpled in confusion and seeing this, Sitwell moved closer.

"He hasn't made it public to the organization, but apparently your...doppelgänger forced it out of your hand. We didn't want to assume anything since the guy wasn't a part of us, either. Hopefully we get this all straightened out."

The super soldier slowly nodded and went to leave when the man tapped his arm.

"Oh...," Steve paused in confusion when the man leaned in to whisper something in his ear, "Hail HYDRA."

Steve's head jerked back in total surprise and Sitwell gave him a satisfied look before taking in his shocked expression.

The super soldier's brain was short-circuiting, almost unable to process the words that had just been uttered and a feeling of outrage and disgust was fast clawing it's way into his throat when a slow sort of realization began to dawn on Sitwell.

Before he could do anything, Steve quickly fought to regain his composure and relaxed his face, nodding reassuringly to the man and clapping a hand on his shoulder.

"Hail HYDRA," he muttered, forcing it out almost angrily.

All sense of suspicion seemed to fade and Sitwell moved out of the way to let him pass, watching as Steve walked away before going back to work.

There was no words to truly describe the confusion and the anger he was feeling—it was as if he was becoming disconnected from the present and being thrown into his past, but for some reason, he wasn't surprised. An organization with such a deeply rooted belief system, especially if S.H.I.E.L.D. continued to dabble in things from the past, must not have truly died out following Johann Schmidt's defeat. And, if he was thinking correctly, Sitwell's involvement meant that HYDRA had other operatives as well, indicating the terrorist organization must've been entrenched within S.H.I.E.L.D., but for how long he had no idea.

His mind was racing with questions as his heart quickened with his steps and the super soldier was just about to break into a sprint back to the laboratory when Agent Rumlow rounded the corner, blocking him from the elevators.

"Captain, there you are. You ready to go?"

"I...I'll be heading communication here at Headquarters, so you can go ahead without me," he said.

"Alright. Oh, and Secretary Pierce wanted to talk to you before we left. You can still go up, he's gonna be here for awhile."

Steve nodded, the super soldier watching him warily as he got into the elevator. He was on edge as agents passed him left and right, wondering how many more could possibly be undercover HYDRA when he reached the door of Pierce's office.

He knocked and a voice from inside beckoned him to come in.

"Captain Rogers." Secretary Pierce greeted him warmly from behind a large oak desk, standing as he moved into the room.

"Sir."

"I was sorry to hear about your sister," he said, rounding the desk to lean against the front, "I'm sure Nick has his best teams on it."

"Yes, sir."

Secretary Pierce folded his arms, staring at Steve as if he was trying to read his mind.

"Agent Sitwell," he began almost hesitantly, "had a piece of interesting news to tell me after yesterday's events. Something about your...loyalty lying elsewhere?"

"What else did he tell you?" Steve asked calmly, his body stiff with suspicion.

"I'm interested. How did America's Golden Boy decide to crossover out of the blue? You wake up out of the ice after a seemingly heroic death, save New York with a bunch of other heroes Fury decided to put together and suddenly you're a HYDRA operative? One I didn't know about?"

"Are you going to tell Director Fury?"

He was hoping that his attempts at evasiveness would work as Pierce stared at him for a long moment.

"Why should I?"

There were two ways to look at the situation: fight or flight.

Among those decisions would come a ripple effect. If he fought, how could he tell whether or not HYDRA agents would try to kill him at the order of Alexander Pierce and what would that mean for the others, including Fury? If he ran, he could possibly find himself in the same place, anyways.

Steve took a sharp breath.

"Freedom...is life's greatest lie," he began slowly, "and I'm tired of fighting for something that nobody takes seriously—that nobody truly believes in anymore. It doesn't matter how, why or when it happened. What matters, Secretary, is that humanity needs to come under one power, one control. And we can do that if we work together from here."

Both men stared at each other, a defiant energy growing between the two when Pierce moved forward and held Steve by the shoulders with a small smile.

He shook him a little with solemn approval.

"Together, we will rise. Hail HYDRA."

"...Hail HYDRA."

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