The appearance of Harry Potter in the doorway of the medical wing, rubbing his shoulder and with a wince on his face had Daphne shooting out of her chair.

"Right, Potter. Bed!" she ordered, pointing at the closest of the six medical beds in the ward.

"I don't need a bed," Potter protested, not that Daphne was paying him any attention.

She'd known this day was coming and she'd planned accordingly. From the top drawer of her desk, Daphne pulled out a small box, not much bigger than a matchbook, before she marched across the room to where Potter had grudgingly taken himself. With a nod of satisfaction at the sight of him sitting there, she placed the box on the ground and tapped it with her wand.

Instantly, the box grew, expanding until it stood waist high. Its highly polished wood gleaming until the bright muggle lights.

"What's that?" Potter asked suspiciously as she ignored the pair of doors on its front to open the lid at its top.

"As a Healer," Daphne replied, "it is my sworn duty to provide the very best care possible to all of my patients. And so, after being coerced into being the Avenger's Healer, I made it a point to contact each of the previous Healers on record for each of my new patients to ensure that I had a complete understanding of their medical history."

"Previous Healer on record," Potter repeated before his eyes widened comically. "No! No, surely you don't mean ..."

With a tap and a wave of her wand, Daphne sent the plaque that had been included with the cabinet that had been sent to her straight to the wall above the bed that Potter was sitting on, sticking it there with a permanent sticking charm. The revulsion on Potter's face was pure bliss to Daphne and she was sure that it was enough to make the irritating man think twice before he ever tried to trick her into anything else in the future.

"You contacted Madam Pomfrey," Potter stated, his voice sounding defeated.

"I did. And Poppy was kind enough to send this cabinet along to me. It contains all of the potions and salves that you are likely to need from your exploits, as well as a complete medical write-up from your time at Hogwarts. That," Daphne added, nodding at the plaque, "she also thought I'd need."

Potter stared at her for a minute before his head dropped.

"So, what seems to be the trouble?" Daphne asked, waving her wand over him to get her own diagnosis.

"I got shot by something but my dragonhide cloak stopped it. Mostly," Potter replied, touching the back of his left shoulder again. "It just feels like a bruise."

"Hmm," Daphne replied, concentrating her spells on his shoulder.

A final swish brought a diagnosis up before her. This time, it seemed, Potter was correct. It was only a bruise, a bad one, but nothing that a bruise salve couldn't put right in a day or two.

"Take your shirt off," she ordered and promptly ignored his raised eyebrow and smirk by opening the chest's doors and rummaging inside.

After straightening, Daphne unscrewed the lid to the salve, dipped her fingers into the dark green paste and began applying it to the nasty purple and blue patch on Potter's shoulder. His sigh of bliss told her that it was already working.

"You'll need to have the bruise salve applied four times a day for the next two days," Daphne stated. "You can either do it yourself or you can come here and I'll do it for you."

"Thanks, but I think I can manage," Potter replied, flexing his shoulder after she'd finished and smiling at the greater movement that he was already getting as the salve did its job.

Taking the jar from her, he turned towards the door before pausing and turning back.

"Ah, Greengrass? You are going to take that down, aren't you?" Potter asked, pointing at the plaque.

Daphne looked from Potter to the plaque and back again.

"I see no need to," she replied. "Knowing you, you'll be back before too long."

Potter's mouth opened and closed before he simply shook his head and left, grumbling to himself.

Yes, Daphne was sure that Potter had gotten the message.

ooo00ooo

"What do you have for us, J?" Tony asked.

"Very little, I am afraid, Sir," Jarvis replied.

"Well, give us very little, then," Tony said.

"Yes, Sir," Jarvis replied. "As you know, Frederick Meyers, Alexander O'Hirn and Herman Shultz were seen together in Lima, Peru."

"Three of the bunch from HYDRA's Project Sinister," Clint observed. "I'd say it's safe to assume that all of them have linked up."

"How did we get the intelligence?" Nat asked.

"Facebook," Jarvis replied simply before elaborating. "The three were in the background of a photograph taken by a British backpacker."

"We got lucky," Maria commented.

"We only have to get lucky once; they need to be lucky all the time for us not to find them," Steve agreed.

"That photograph was taken forty-seven hours ago," Jarvis continued. "Since then, I have been monitoring all flights from Lima and the surrounding cities and airports, without any success. I have also been monitoring social media in Peru, also without success."

"What about private jets?" Tony asked. "They've been using Osborn's jet to get around."

"There have been no flight plans filed for any plane owned by Norman Osborn or by Oscorp itself, within Peru or indeed any of the surrounding countries," Jarvis stated.

"Not that it's all that hard to get into or out of some of those countries without filing the proper paperwork," Natasha stated.

"What are the odds that they're working out of somewhere in South America?" Steve asked.

"I would say that the odds are high," Jarvis replied.

"If they are and they're using an old S.H.I.E.L.D. base, that makes finding them a lot easier," Maria stated.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. never did have many bases in South America," Clint agreed.

"No, it didn't. And of the ones that we did have, there are only two unaccounted for; the rest were either destroyed in HYDRA's uprising or are now under the control of their host nation.," Maria said. "The Beach Hut in Buenos Aires and Barracuda Base in central Brazil."

"Then that's where we need to go," Clint said. "Nat, how about you, me and Bobbi go check them out?"

"Reconnaissance only," Steve stated, making sure that the two in the room looked him in the eye and acknowledged his orders.

"Don't worry, Steve, we're spies, remember," Natasha smirked. "They'll never know we were there."

ooo00ooo

Bruce sat back on his stool, staring at his computer screen. The results there were enough to have him chewing on the end of one arm of his glasses. It wasn't so much the gamma readings, no, it was the other, more exotic readings that were being detected.

His eyes flicked to the 'battery' that Tony had brought back with them from Australia. The pulsing blue energy that could be seen through the silver metallic slits in its sides were definitely familiar and eerily like the tesseract. The readings, though, the readings that they were getting didn't quite match up.

"I've seen this before," Erik Selvig stated ominously.

"Where?" Bruce asked.

Erik glanced up at Bruce before focussing back on his computer.

"Loki's staff," Erik stated.

"The Staff?" Bruce echoed

He knew that both it and the tesseract were extra-terrestrial in origin but for them to have such close readings defied the odds. The two were definitely related somehow.

"The Staff wasn't in Australia," Bruce said.

"Maybe not," Erik shrugged. "But these things are full of energy that could only have come from it."

"And that energy has been collected into these batteries," Bruce said, beginning to pace. "And batteries are only needed to power something else. What could these things power?"

"With the amount of energy that they contain? Theoretically, anything," Erik replied. "Whatever it is, though, it'd need to be specially converted to handle the output."

Hearing that, Bruce's head snapped up and whipped towards the battery. He'd seen weapons designed to handle that sort of energy before. Or at least, the prototypes. Steve, he knew, had seen and fought against working models. If HYDRA had these batteries, he could only hope that they hadn't gotten around to perfecting the weapons that went with them.

"I need to update the others," Bruce said before rushing from the lab.

ooo00ooo

"Fury," Steve said, noting the trench-coated, eye-patched man standing in the doorway.

"I hope you don't mind, I invited him along," Maria said as she walked over to the former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to shake his hand.

"Why should we mind?" Tony snarked. "It's only my house."

"I'd think you'd appreciate the intel that I can provide," Fury retorted, taking a seat at the conference table, "especially with what I hear that you're up against."

"What is it that you've heard that we're up against? I'm only asking because we haven't had a briefing yet from Birdbrain and the two girl agents yet," Tony said, looking pointedly at the three.

"Perhaps we should hear from them first and then I can fill in the blanks afterwards," Fury suggested.

"Sounds like a plan," Steve nodded. "Guys?"

"We started with The Beach Hut," Natasha said, beginning the briefing. "It was a total bust. The place has been abandoned."

"Mind you, it was cleaned out first," Clint added. "Anything of value that was once there is gone. And no one's claimed it, not S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA not even the Argentinian government."

"Barracuda Base is a different story," Natasha stated. "That place is crawling with people."

"And not just the Base, either," Bobbi said, leaning forward. "The jungle surrounding it is teeming with men. From what we could tell, they're not HYDRA; looked to be indigenous, most likely men belonging to the local warlord."

"Our best guess is that they've been hired to provide extra security for Barracuda," Natasha stated.

"My money's on 'coerced' to provide that extra security," Clint interjected.

"How many?" Maria asked.

"Easily a hundred, possibly one fifty," Clint replied.

"That's some force," Steve stated. "Sounds to me as though they're definitely guarding something important."

"Whatever it is, it's being controlled by the men in HYDRA's Sinister Project," Natasha said, even as Bobbi had her pad throwing up images that they'd taken of the Base onto the large monitor for everyone to see.

The group around the table studied the couple of dozen images intently and not just the fact that every one of the eight of the 'Sinister' group were there, but also the Base and terrain as well. The pictures were taken from a number of different vantage points but all highlighted that Barracuda Base was located in a tree-less valley in the middle of the jungle that was protected by a five metre high fence. Three large buildings, each three stories high, were placed so that the three formed the sides of a triangle.

In addition to the militia outside the fence, there were extra men inside the fence. Some were obviously on patrol; others were stationed at any of the three dozen guard towers or large gun bunkers that were evenly placed around the buildings.

"That's a lot of fire power," Harry noted.

"And that's just the tip of the iceberg," Fury sighed.

"What do you mean by that?" Steve asked, focussing on the man.

"What I mean is that, back when S.H.I.E.L.D. owned that place, Barracuda was used to store munitions," Fury replied.

"Munitions?" Bucky asked from his shadowed corner. "What type?"

"You name it and it was probably stored there," Fury replied. "Everything from hand guns to assault rifles to missiles to anti-aircraft guns. There were even a few ICBMs – without their thermonuclear warheads, before you ask – and everything in between."

"What about your Phase Two weapons?" Bruce asked, leaning forward intently.

"Phase Two?" a surprised Fury repeated.

"Yes. Phase Two. Weapons that would work using the batteries that we found in Australia," Bruce stated emphatically.

"You think that that's what those batteries are for?" Tony asked.

Bruce shrugged. "It'd make sense. They use the energy that's been harnessed from Loki's Staff and that stuff isn't all that different from the tesseract."

"Loki's Staff?" Thor asked. "You believe that it could be there, in this Barracuda Base?"

"No," Bruce replied with a shake of his head. "I think it's somewhere else and that they're using it to collect its energy and shipping it wherever it needs to go but using the Australian base as a midpoint."

"Makes sense," Steve nodded. "So, how about it, Nick, were any Phase Two weapons stored there?"

"There shouldn't be," Fury stated. "At least, I never ordered any to be taken there. But that's not to say that Pierce or one of the other HYDRA higher-ups didn't get some sent there on the sly."

"That's something," Natasha said.

"Whether they're there or not, we don't have a choice, we're going to have to take the fight to them," Steve stated. "I'm guessing that when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, they didn't have time to take the weapons with them. That means that there's an arsenal there in the hands of some very dangerous individuals."

Maria tapped her pad, wiping away the pictures on the main screen and replacing it with a schematic.

"This is Barracuda Base," she said. "As you can see, the buildings on the surface are only a tiny fraction of the base. The main research, testing and storage facilities are on these seven sub-levels. This section here goes a further five levels below that again and is where the ICBMs are stored. That section opens up between the three buildings on the surface in case any weapons need to be fired."

"What's their range?" Steve asked.

"From there, they could target anywhere in South and Central America, as well as most of the United Stated," Maria replied.

"Do we have somewhere to put all of that once we take the Base?" Clint asked. "I can't imagine it being safe if we just leave it there."

"I can alert my contacts in the US Army to the base after you clean house and they can handle moving and storing the munitions," Fury replied.

"If everything that's been outlined is correct, then this isn't going to be a walk in the park," Steve commented.

"No, it's not," Fury agreed. "But together, you can do anything; after all, that's why I brought you together."

"The eight of HYDRA's Sinister group with whatever the tech that's been developed for them, plus the arsenal of weapons and men that they've got in the Base," Bobbi summed up with a shake of her head.

"Don't forget that warlord and his militia guarding their perimeter," Clint added.

"Yes, let's not forget them," Bobbi stated sarcastically.

"Blonsky's like an army all on his own," Natasha stated, her eyes flicking to Bruce.

"Oh, don't worry about Blonsky," Bruce replied. "I can feel the Hulk, he's ready for a rematch to prove that he's still the Alpha."

"But this time Hulk doesn't have to do it alone," Steve said, clapping the mild-mannered scientist on his shoulder.

"And being in the middle of the jungle, I'm not likely to break anything important either," Bruce added.

"Do we know any more about what tech was designed for them?" Harry asked.

"Unfortunately not," Maria replied. "All we've been able to decipher are the file names: Rhinoceros, Octopus, Shock, Glider, Boomerang, Hunt."

"There's no telling exactly how that tech could enhance them," Tony commented.

"You think they could be some kind of suit like yours?" Fury asked.

Tony shrugged. "Hard to say, although Osborn was on a glider and wearing some kind of suit in that footage of them releasing the Abomination."

"The seven of us may not be enough this time," Clint commented.

"That's why I'm going to be calling in all of the Avengers," Steve stated.

"You tell Pepper," Tony quickly interjected. "Actually, J, you're recording this right? Make sure that you show Pepper Capsical saying that so that she knows that it wasn't my idea."

"What are you going on about, Stark?" Fury asked.

"Pepper has this thing against the young 'uns being used in missions," Tony replied.

"She needn't worry about Teddy," Harry said. "He's not coming. Besides, he's in Scotland, a little too far to get here in time."

"Sounds like you need all the help you can get," Bucky spoke up from the shadowy corner that he was leaning in. "Count me in."

Steve glanced at Daphne, receiving the tiniest shake of her head, before focussing back on his oldest friend.

"Are you sure?" Steve asked.

"You need every asset that you've got," Bucky said and no one missed the wince on his face at the word 'asset'.

"Bucky," Steve began gently.

But it was Daphne who got to him first.

"You're not ready yet, James," she said, laying a hand on his arm. "You're close but not quite there yet. Another month or two at most."

"I could do with an extra set of eyes and ears in the Command Centre," Maria said.

Bucky stared into the eyes of his Mind Healer before his shoulders visibly slumped, albeit only slightly. Switching his look across to Hill, he gave her a nod, accepting the branch that she'd extended.

"Jarvis," Steve called. "Send out the call for all of the Avengers to assemble here within the next half hour."

"Yes, Sir," Jarvis replied.

ooo00ooo

Doreen had her arm up in front of her with the face of her Avenger's watch facing upwards as she walked from the elevator behind Matt, Peter and Jennifer.

"I don't know Ted," she said to the floating 3D head being projected from her watch. "Look, I'm here now; I'll get Harry to call you back in a minute, okay?"

"Thanks, Doreen," Ted smiled.

Doreen returned the smile before pressing the button that would cut off the connection.

Thankfully, it didn't take much to find Harry – he was leaning up against the bar, a cup of tea in his hand.

"Harry," she said, having weaved her way in through the crowd to reach him.

"Hi, Doreen," he replied. "Is something wrong?"

"Can you call Ted, please," she said without preamble.

"Ted?" Harry repeated.

"Yes," she nodded. "He wants to know where and when the quinjet'll be landing to get him for the mission."

"Ted's waiting for a quinjet," Harry repeated flatly and Doreen wondered why he was being particularly dense right then.

"Of course," Doreen replied. "Everyone's being called in for this, right?"

Harry stared at her for a moment before sighing.

"Looks like I'd better talk to him," Harry said as he placed his cup on the bar.

Doreen only gave Harry a moment's head start before following him. Something was off with Harry and she wanted to know what it was. When Harry went out onto the outside deck, Doreen ducked behind a pillar. A quick glance out through the glass to see Harry's back was enough for her to ease open the door so that she could hear the conversation.

"Sparrowhawk," Harry said, the phrase that Doreen knew activated his watch.

She watched him press a couple of buttons before Ted's holographic head appeared suspended above Harry's watch.

"Uncle Harry!" Ted beamed. "So, what's the deal? When should I expect a pick up?"

Harry shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Teddy, but no one's coming to get you," Harry said.

"But Doreen said