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"...apparently they volunteered for Strucker's experiments." Hill said. "Real fanatics."

"Right." There was a twist to Steve Rogers' mouth. "Who would be so crazy as to allow some German scientist to experiment on them to defend their country?"

Hill frowned. "We're not at war, Captain."

"They are." Cap said, as the doors closed.

And then they opened again. "By the way, Ms. Hill." Rogers said, looking at Stark's second with sudden puzzlement. "I'd never seen anything like these two before. Stark said much the same—no intel."

Hill's expression was unreadable. "That's true, sir. Stark securities has never run across these two before."

"Then..." Rogers puzzled expression grew. "...how do you have all this information on them? Strucker's files?"

"We haven't had a chance to process Strucker's files yet." Hill answered. "All that we have now is based on outside intel."

Cap waited, but it seemed she did not want to elaborate. "I was asking about where that intel comes from." He explained.

"Sir." There was a rare twist to Hill's mouth. "I don't ask how you destroy bases, don't ask me how I come up with intel. Beyond that..." She gave a dismissive shrug. "...let's just say the information came from a trusted friend."

Cap stared at her for a moment. "Ms. Hill," He said, turning to enter the elevator, "Sometime, we should have a long talk about that."

Long trees stretched up toward the sky, white against the slate-grey of the cliff-face. A single man stood among them, staring up at the cliff as the breeze ruffled his large overcoat.

Agent Antoine Tripplett walked up to him. "All set, Robocop?"

Michael Peterson, codename "Deathlok," turned and glared at the SHIELD agent. "Don't call me that."

"What do you want me to call you? Terminator? Million-Dollar-Man? Inspector Gadget?" Trip spread his hands.

"Tripp..." Director Coulson sent the agent a look as he walked up, May lurking by his shoulder.

"I'm just saying," Tripp spread his hands. "'Agent Peterson' is way too dull, and 'Deathlok' is way too scary."

A horribly scarred face and a glowing red eye swiveled to face the agent. "And I'm not scary?"

"You're... intense." Coulson amended.

"Nah, you're not even remotely scary." Tripp grinned. "You're one of the good guys now."

Peterson held his gaze for a moment before grunting and turning away. "Ace always loved Inspector Gadget." He observed.

"All right." Tripp clapped him on the back. "So, 'Agent Gadget,' what's the word?"

Deathlok nodded up the hill to the barely-visible bunker at the top. "I count a little over two hundred thermal signatures inside, as well as some heat from some generators and an undetermined amount of lab equipment.

"Old WWII lab." Skye stepped forward, tablet in hand. "Purchased by private collectors after the war. Listed as a historical artifact, yet..." She turned the tablet to face the director. "...drawing 1.21 gigawatts off the local power grid."

"This is Hydra, correct?" Deathlok glanced at the director.

"One of their smaller outposts, but probably, yeah." Skye nodded.

"Our main source finally dropped the big bad's name." Coulson said, studying the tablet "Some guy named Strucker, disenfranchised German aristocracy. SHIELD's got no records, obviously, but this looks like his sort of place."

"One way to find out," shrugged Deathlok, shedding his coat to reveal the gleaming cybernetic armor.

Tripp looked to Coulson. Coulson gave a nod. "Tripp, give your men the signal."

"Men?" Deathlok glanced at the others.

"Five squads." Tripp glanced at him. "Plus vehicle support. You get the Beta team, Gadget."

Deathlok glanced at the director, who nodded. "I thought you guys said this was a minor outpost." He said.

"It is." Coulson gave a short nod. "But last week the Air Force got massacred attacking a Hydra base we tipped them off to. We need to be careful about this."

"Director..." May warned.

Coulson winced. "Right. Back to the Bus. Skye will be providing technical support from there. We'll try to give more tangible firepower, too, but..." he shrugged. "...it's a bunker."

"Sir." Tripp threw the man a glance. "There's only two hundred of them. Me and Gadget here are going to be just fine."

They were about fifteen minutes into the structure when things started to go wrong.

"Commander, we're proceeding to the... the hell!"

"They're coming through the walls!"

"What... where did...?"

"Get them off Get them off! Get them off!"

Tripp frowned and touched his radio. "All teams, report!"

"Sir, we're at point four, we..." the feed suddenly cut off.

"What's going on?" Coulson questioned, tersely.

"I... don't know." Skye said, her fingers flying over the table. "Their vital signs are still there, but they've gone unresponsive... heart rates are elevating..."

"Team Beta, respond!" Tripp bellowed into his radio. "Respond, damnit..."

A blue-silver streak came out of nowhere and blasted Tripp over, sending him flying back and crashing into the wall. His team whirled around, firing wildly, only to find their weapons jerked out of their hands and dismantled into pieces. As they flailed about meaninglessly at the blur, Tripp struggled back to consciousness and touched his radio again. "Deathlok!" He croaked. "We need backup!"

"Why isn't Deathlok responding?"

"Hang on, I can access his feeds..."

Deathlok was far beyond giving backup, or even hearing his commander. He was currently watching his son bleed out on the floor, with a smiling John Garret standing above him. I told you not to turn against me, Peterson...

He did not see the brunette woman in red standing directly in the hallway before him, or the shapes of his men writhing on the floor. He did not see the pale blond man in the light-blue jumpsuit run up to her and grin triumphantly.

He did not see—but his cybernetic eye did.

"We may have possible gifted on the ground, sir." Skye stated, staring at the scene. "Telepath, maybe."

"Damnit!" Coulson touched his ear. "May, land the plane, now!" He frowned at the answer. "Don't give me that, our boys are in trouble down there!" Now he was gritting his teeth. "May, I don't want to order you..."

"Sir?" Skye said hurriedly. "Take a look at this."

Coulson glanced over at the table.

The blinking green dots were, one by one, being placed outside the base, unresponsive but unharmed.

Coulson's hand dropped to his side.

"Sir?" Skye looked at him.

Coulson swallowed. "Pick them up." He said, curtly. "Pick up our boys. Then we need to disappear until we can figure out what the hell just happened."

"We're working to identify them." Skye informed Coulson several days later, as the two of them studied the video of the attack. The brunette and the blonde seemed to be conferring about something. "The guy left some skin cells on Tripp when he clocked him, we're mapping the DNA sequence now. Facial analysis suggests they're eastern European, possibly siblings—"

"Twins." Coulson supplied.

Deathlok, standing off to the side, looked at him. "You knew about these people, sir?"

Coulson shook his head. "Some of the Hydra communications we've intercepted mentioned a 'Gemini' project."

"Like... from the horoscope?" Skye frowned.

"We looked into that angle, but no." Coulson stepped closer to the screen and studied the image. "Gemini or Castores was the Latin term for Castor and Pollux, a pair of Greek twins. The immortal twin gave up half of his divinity to bring his mortal brother back to life."

Skye blinked. "Um. Okay."

Tripp chuckled. "That all off the top of your head, sir?"

"Not really." Coulson half-turned and gave a shamefaced smile. "We've been looking into every possible interpretation of 'Gemini' over the past few months."

Everyone turned back toward the screen The blonde man gave a quick nod and vanished. The brunette woman stepped closer to Deathlok's inert camera and tilted her head, studying him.

"So, the good news is that the plan itself was more or less on track." Skye shrugged. "Intel recovered suggests we caught them off-guard, when they were at minimal strength."

"The bad news is what that means." Coulson's mouth took a grim twist. "This was a pinpoint strike—our most powerful resources at their vulnerable point. And it still didn't work."

"Any more than using the Air Force did." Tripp nodded.

Coulson drew a hand over his face. "This could have been another massacre..."

"But it wasn't." Skye pointed out. "That tells us something."

"Nothing that helps us deal with the main problem." Coulson crossed his arms. "Hydra has metas, and we have no realistic way of matching them." He started guiltily and looked over at Deathlok. "Er, no offense."

Deathlok shrugged, though he looked a bit upset. "No point denying it. Though some upgrades wouldn't hurt."

"Worth considering." Coulson frowned. "But I doubt even Fit... even Simmons could match Hydra's deadly duo here."

There was a painful silence from the group, but a voice from the monitor broke it "You are like us." The assembled agents half-turned to watch the video again. The brunette was apparently caressing the side of Deathlok's face. "A tool, to be used for destruction." She leaned in closer. "We bear neither you nor your masters any ill will."

"The duo's not SO deadly." Skye pointed out. "I mean, it's gotta be the speedster that cleared our guys out of there, right? As in, unharmed? As in, not dead?"

"He wasn't so generous with the Air Force." May spoke up for the first time.

Skye shrugged. "Maybe he wasn't the one doing the killing. Clearing the way for the killing, sure, but not actually killing. Chances are these two are just a pair of overpowered teenagers."

"Then why are they with Hydra?" Tripp asked.

The monitor answered him. "We." The brunette's whisper changed to a hiss, "Want. Stark."

Agent Koenig tapped a few keys on the computer. "Sir, I'm not sure about this..."

"I am." Coulson said flatly. "It needs to be done, and it needs to be done now."

"I'm just not comfortable with me doing this." Billy winced, still tapping away. "Eric was the one good with computers." He half-twisted in his chair. "Shouldn't Agent Skye...?"

"I'd prefer to keep the circle small on this." Coulson shook his head. "And realistically, Skye's involvement wouldn't mean much here. The only way to keep SHIELD isolated from this is to keep this isolated from SHIELD." Glancing quickly around the empty concrete room, Coulson rubbed his hands in the cold. "Dharma base is entirely self-contained, if they trace the signal back to here, they'll just get another empty facility with nothing inside."

"Shouldn't Agent May at least be..."

"What, May?" Coulson threw Koenig a look. "She'd never let me do this." He clapped the technician on the shoulder. "Okay. Showtime."

Koenig shivered and pressed a button.

The screen in the front of the empty room flickered into life, showing a slightly cluttered desk in an obviously-expensive office, occupied by a dark-haired woman whose sharp profile was present to the camera.

She glanced quickly around, and her eyes widened. "Coulson." She said, turning to face the camera.

"Deputy Director Hill." Coulson nodded, then considered. "Sorry. Miss Hill."

"Assistant Chief of Operations Hill, technically." The woman tilted her head. "How did you get this number, Coulson?"

"Surely that's not relevant." Coulson gave a little smile.

"No, it's not." Hill agreed. "What's relevant is why you're still at large." Her gaze hardened. "I understood you going after Garret, but that's done, Phil. This new SHIELD you're pretending to lead is only making things more difficult on everyone. I don't want to send Stark Securities after you..."

"No, you really don't." Coulson smiled. "Because then you'd have a tough time explaining to your boss how I'm still alive, and exactly how long you've kept that from him."

Hill's mouth closed and her lips tightened. "Don't play games with me, Phil."

"I'm not." Coulson spread his hands. "In fact, I think we can give each other a hand."

Now Hill looked amused. "Phil. Your people are outnumbered, outgunned, and barely have the intel to botch a tip to the Air Force." She held up a hand to forestall Coulson's outburst. "Don't even try. That had your handprints all over it, and it left Talbot more convinced than ever that you're toxic goods. Along with every other SHIELD agent trying to strike a deal. You're already more of a hindrance than a help." There was a beep from her computer. "And I've just pinpointed whatever base this is you're using." She cocked an eyebrow. "So tell me quick: how exactly can you 'give a hand' to a multi-billion-dollar security company that employs this world's only superheroes?"

"For starters, I can pass on a message." Coulson grinned.

A/N: Gah. Really? Another multi-chapter fic? About Agents of SHIELD? Why do I do this to myself? I should focus on finishing the stories I have, not making more.

But I couldn't help it. A number of things about Theta protocol and really just AoS's integration with AoU in general rubbed me the wrong way, and I thought of this fic as a way of smoothing them over. I like to think of it as a "missing scenes" fic-various snippets of moments for AoS S2 or from AoU that could really have made the integration between the two much more interesting and less... forced.

For starters, Hill. Hill, in Season 1, was strongly against SHIELD being re-formed, and advised Coulson to give up and play ball with Talbot. She told Coulson in no uncertain terms that SHIELD was done and out, and there wasn't some "rebuilding" program going on. Yet somehow, in Season 2, she's revealed to have been part of SHIELD's rebuilding program?

I don't buy it. So here, Hill is a company person for Stark, through and through. She believes SHIELD failed and that Coulson is causing problems. She's not working for Fury (since clearly Fury didn't trust HER to be Director), but hopefully this fic will explain how she got to be a part of Theta Protocol-which is NOT a SHIELD initiative.