I wrote this because Heimdall would make an incredibly good spy master, what with knowing everything everyone does every time. But why is no one asking him what the fudge is going on?

Here is what I do with the information.

This is an AU starting from 'Avengers' and messing with everything else after that. Also, for Very Important Purposes, Thor: The Dark World happens in November 2012 and Iron Man 3 happens in December 2013. I just switched the years.

Warning: there is one paragraph of torture, because I couldn't help myself. Nothing overly graphic.

Chapter 1 out of 5.

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Tattletale

Chapter 1

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"Heimdall," Odin the All-father spoke solemnly, looking straight into the Asgardian's eyes. "You have been bestowed a powerful and remarkable gift – that of All-Sight. You'll become aware of all that happens in the Nine Realms. I expect you to report anything worth knowing to me."

Heimdall nodded. "I shall do as ordered, my King."

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1943, Midgard

A man in black leather drove a sleek black car in front of a castle, followed soon after by a tank.

The man made his way over the debris of the castle wall, and walked up to an engraved stone coffin. He pushed off the slab over it effortlessly, making his men gape and watch in awe.

One man, clearly not an ally of theirs, trembled, but stood defiantly.

The man in black leather – Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, who hid his terrible red visage under a mask – didn't look all that bothered that the mock-Tesseract wasn't the Tesseract. He made his way to a carved Yggdrasil and pushed a button.

The Tesseract was there, on Midgard, in the hands of a man who wanted to use its power to conquer his own realm.

Not that they'd have any luck harnessing the Infinity Stone's power.

.

A couple of Midgard months later, Heimdall watched as a fraction – an infinitesimal fraction – of the Tesseract's power was loaded and restrained into a Midgardian metal device.

Heimdall watched as the weapons powered by the Tesseract worked and teleported countless humans in different corners of the Nine Realms.

One of the Midgardians fell face-first into the jaws of a Bilgesnipe. Another froze to death on Jotunheim. Another flew directly into Valhalla. Another one fell right in front of the Bifrost and drowned in the waters surrounding it.

This was definitely worth reporting.

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Odin the All-father looked in Midgard's direction disdainfully. "They're playing with power far beyond their comprehension," he stated.

"Allow me to show the error in their ways, father," said Thor Odinson, grinning with gleeful rage, "with Mjolnir!"

The All-father narrowed his eyes at his son. "No. Their petty squabbles will soon put their meddling with the Tesseract to an end."

Loki glanced between Odin's royal scowl and his brother's sullen pout. He shrugged minutely.

Whatever the Midgardians did in their own realm didn't concern them.

.

The All-father was proven right when Johann Schmidt was hurled in Muspelheim's realm.

The Tesseract fell.

The Valkyrie – a Midgardian metal contraption, named after the Valkyries! Outrageous! – fell as a human "put her in the water", to quote his words.

The Tesseract was taken, a few Midgardian years later, but the humans didn't use it to build other weapons – yet. Look at them, already picking up and studying the weapons of their HYDRA enemies.

Midgardians were so predictable.

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2010, Midgard

A man defied the laws of Midgardian gravity with a very different metal contraption.

It suited him – literally.

It was a suit.

A metal suit, built under enemy surveillance and disguised as missile – which it clearly wasn't, though it could fly for a little while – that could spit flames.

It was impressive for a Midgardian, but irrelevant to Heimdall's eyes.

.

That same man was slowly dying because of the very thing keeping him alive.

He still pushed through the whole debacle, foolishly alone in his pain, but helped by two friends who would never give up on him and two strangers from an organization called Shield.

Heimdall had seen the Red Skull's HYDRA infiltrating their ranks, but it was irrelevant to Asgard.

.

That was, until Thor was banished to Midgard.

New Mexico, the Midgardians called that area. There was a small city, Puerto Antiguo, with small people and a lot of small minds – but not all, Heimdall admitted. That Jane Foster had picked up on the Bifrost portals and studied them. She was still nowhere near recreating them, though, so it wasn't something to worry about.

Thor found her and her companions.

And SHIELD.

There was a lot of SHIELD on that operation and less of HYDRA.

Thor had been lucky. In his mortal form, he could have easily perished because of Midgardian weapons – guns, rifles, medicines if used in the right way or amount – but the only time Heimdall almost feared for him was when an archer – Clint Barton, Hawkeye – turned his bow and arrow in Thor's direction.

If Thor had been in all his Asgardian strength, he would have laughed it off. The arrow would have bounced off his armor, or merely scratched his skin.

But he was but a human then. Humans were very fragile to their own environment and intellect. Thor knew he was weaker, but not how much weaker. If the Son of Coul had let the archer take the shot, the banished prince would have died.

Jane Foster's older companion helped Thor, though. The prince seemed to have understood he wasn't worthy of Mjolnir yet. He was learning. If only Heimdall could urge him to learn faster.

Loki went to and returned from Jotunheim. Heimdall couldn't see him in that timeframe and he didn't trust him as far as he could throw him. Loki's kingdom was but a temporary solution until the All-father's awakening, so Heimdall waited.

Sif and the Warriors Three came to him and asked to be sent to Midgard. He let them.

Then Loki approached him with the Casket of Ancient Winters, and he couldn't do anything.

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A little before that whole debacle, Heimdall saw a man exposing himself to what they called 'gamma radiation'.

The results were… most intriguing.

Who knew the Midgardians could become shape-shifters, to an extremely limited extent? Doctor Bruce Banner, who could turn into a raging green giant called the 'Hulk'.

First the man in the metal suit – Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man – and now this other one. There was still the man who fought the Red Skull – Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America – but he was frozen in time and he didn't seem about to wake anytime soon.

Midgard was an interesting realm to watch.

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Then Heimdall saw Loki and the Tesseract and the Mind Gem in his scepter and told the All-father.

Thor was sent down to Midgard.

It was strange to see Thor interacting with the Midgardians again.

It wasn't strange to see Thor picking a fight with the man in the flying suit – Iron Man – before 'Captain America' intervened.

"Put the hammer down," he said.

Thor slammed Mjolnir on Iron Man's chest. "Do you want me to put the hammer down?!" he bellowed.

Not very wise of you, Captain America.

Heimdall watched as the human quickly crouched and brought his colourful shield up to meet Mjolnir. The subsequent shockwave felled many unfortunate trees, but it did bring an end to their fight.

Heimdall found that Midgard had few vibranium mines, and all were in the area of Wakanda, a closed nation. It made a raid much easier if they were to harvest a material capable of blocking Mjolnir. Obviously, that would mean waging war against Midgard, a realm which Thor was particularly fond of.

The flying contraption called 'Helicarrier' held Loki in a glass prison that could be dropped on Midgard's surface. Shield didn't seem to realize Loki was exactly where he wanted to be, or that he could have escaped.

The woman who interrogated him – Natalia Alianova Romanova, Black Widow – was clever. Loki did know of Bruce Banner the 'Hulk', and yes it was part of his plan to escape and scatter the 'Avengers', but that was just a bonus.

Loki also knew that the Avengers weren't friends and that they would all crowd around the Mind Gem to study it. Its 'radiation' would call to the Helicarrier those Loki was mind-controlling.

The monster they brought was discord.

And discord was Loki's domain.

The 'Avengers' insulted, accused, growled and shouted and snarled at each other. They jabbed where they felt it hurt the most, twisted their words into their comrades' open wounds and almost fought each other when Loki's forces came in.

'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' of course, so they worked together.

Mostly.

Thor was sent hurtling towards the ground in that glass prison that even Mjolnir had trouble breaking.

Those Midgardians became more and more dangerous – "ready for a higher form of war," as Thor put it. Not only because they were using the Tesseract.

But Thor was fine after he fell. Shaken, doubting his worthiness to lift Mjolnir, but not despairing.

The Avengers came together shortly after.

Loki had opened a portal to the Chitauri – the Chitauri! How could Heimdall not see them?! – right above a highly populated Midgardian city, but he wasn't using his magic to its full extent. Strange. He tried to use the Mind Gem on Iron Man – but the metal over his heart made it impossible to control him through the scepter.

He stabbed Thor, that Jotun.

Heimdall watched in near astonishment when Thor Odinson, prince of Asgard, took orders from a Midgardian he barely knew and was wearing a skintight flag.

It didn't stop to that, no – Thor and Captain America fought together, side by side, for most of the battle. Thor helped him up when he fell, like a comrade.

A missile created by humans, flew right over the isle of Manhattan and was diverted up into the portal by Iron Man. Just as the Midgardian fell back on his planet, Heimdall heard the dying screams of the Chitauri as they thrashed and burned at the intense heat of the Midgardian weapon.

Midgard never ceased to amaze him.

.

Heimdall watched as the Avengers 'disassembled'.

They each went their own way, but were ready to 'assemble' again whenever the situation called for it. They were a strange team, divided mostly by twos – Tony Stark and Bruce Banner bonded over their mutual interest in 'science', Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton were already shield-brothers… which left Steve Rogers and Thor Odinson, warriors at heart.

After the Bifrost was repaired, Thor was often on Midgard with the Avengers, because trouble stirred up so often they were 'assembled' almost permanently.

Thor and the Hulk had some sort of 'smashing competition' going on. They wanted to prove they were the strongest, but they worked together when it was needed. There was a lot of punching involved. Bruce was much calmer though.

Thor and Tony had a strange kind of relationship. Tony Stark asked and pushed to know whether Mjolnir was "mentally connected to you somehow, you know, to call it at will without yelling 'Accio Mjolnir'" or if Mjolnir could "spin right 'round, right 'round, when it goes down" or if Thor's stomach had "a black hole inside it, Jesus, how much do you eat, seriously".

The prince was confused almost every time. Heimdall didn't entirely blame him.

Thor and Steve had something much closer to camaraderie. They spoke about their missions and adventures with their teams – the Warrior Three and Sif, and the Howling Commandos – and bonded over their past experiences. Thor even asked Steve about the "intricate stages of Midgardian courtship" since he had heard about a certain Peggy Carter and he needed advice to "court" Jane Foster.

The soldier's face was stricken, scrunched up in pain and grief, but he did tell Thor what he knew.

The prince didn't ask about Peggy again.

Thor and Clint Barton were prone to 'pranking' each other. It often involved the food of the 'common floor': it was either misplaced, eaten when it shouldn't have been, or burnt due to the many machines in the kitchen. They didn't dare touch each other's weapons, in case there was an emergency. Both of them had learned from previous experience not to do that.

Thor and Natasha Romanoff didn't interact very much, but they could work together almost seamlessly. She trusted the prince in battle because he help both on and off the battlefield – even when he 'made popcorn' with his lightning when "you could have used the microwave, Clint talked you into it, didn't he". She was very similar to Lady Sif.

They were valiant warriors, despite their flaws.

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Thor was very close to Captain America.

They were – arguably, if people wanted a hammer/fist to the face – among the strongest of their race. They both knew how it felt to watch their brother-but-no-quite fall to their 'death'. They both knew of the burden that came with self-sacrifice and their position of command. They were warriors.

If Captain America was injured (both physically or mentally), the 'god' of thunder kept vigil by his side.

There was this one time, when Hydra-disguised-as-AIM captured him on his 'day off'. They drugged him, strapped him to a metal table, tore into his limbs and injected things into his blood, things that made him scream himself hoarse. He struggled and clung to the hope that his friends, the Avengers, would come – he hoped and prayed, as his body twitched and jerked at the electricity and poison coursing through him.

Heimdall watched as Thor, flanked by Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, broke into the building and destroyed anyone and anything that tried to stop them.

"The Captain needs a doctor!" Thor bellowed, Mjolnir spinning in his right hand as he held Steve's twitching body with the other. The Avengers had already did all they could to stabilize their fallen comrade, but there was too much blood on the floor and not enough inside their friend. "I shall bring him to the Healing Chambers!"

"Thor-!" was all Iron Man could say before Thor flew straight back to Avengers Tower and crash-landed into the medical floor. After the humans stopped screaming for the shock, they screamed at each other in order to bring the soldier back to conscious life.

When the Avengers later returned, they stood vigil with Thor over their Captain.

The only times Thor had done this was when the All-father first went into Odin-sleep and when Loki depleted his magic to save the Warriors Three, Sif and Thor from thirty Bilgesnipe.

Thor was very close to Captain America.

Captain America had fought HYDRA for his whole life, and now he was unknowingly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them at SHIELD. If – when – he discovered this, he'd be in emotional distress and, by consequence, Thor would be too. If Heimdall considered the Winter Soldier's identity too, well.

This was relevant information.

(Humans were so very fragile, even when 'enhanced'. It was risky to befriend them. But the prince had made a decision, had chosen a side and a team of Midgard, and it was one of Heimdall's many duties to make sure he was in the right state of mind to take up the throne when there would be the need.)

So Heimdall called for Thor to return to Asgard – with his shield-brother Steve Rogers.

"Uh," Tony Stark commented. "This is interesting. Can I come too?"

Thor shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

"But Thoooooor," he wailed, his arms flailing as if he were a three-year-old, "the Bifrost! Asgard! Science! I have to go there – for science! Pointbreak, think of the science!"

Steve didn't bat an eyelash at the display. "I don't think we'll go there for a tour… right?"

"I believe not. Strangers aren't taken to the Palace unless they're diplomats or it's an emergency only the All-father can deal with. Heimdall only told me he had important information for us."

"'Us' as in us Avengers, or as in you and Steve?" Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow.

Thor nodded at the latter. "He has information for Steve and me."

Tony pouted, went off to the 'Party Table' to sulk and grab a bottle of whiskey. "But science," he whined. Bruce patted him on the back and whispered, "we still have that other experiment on AIM's Chitauri enhanced weapons," which lifted the billionaire's spirits. He jumped upright, nodded and headed to the elevator to see his comrades off.

Thor lifted Mjolnir to the sky and yelled, "Heimdall, portal!"

Heimdall opened the Bifrost.

"Bring me a piece of Rainbow Bridge, Rogers!" Tony shouted at the duo before they were out of earshot by billions of so-called 'light-years'.

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"What was it you needed to discuss, Heimdall?" Thor asked.

Steve looked a bit intimidated to be in a whole new realm. At least his uniform wasn't as ridiculous as his second one - the one he was wearing during the 'Battle of Manhattan', as it was later called - and accomplished its job of hiding the Captain's injuries to those without All-Sight.

"Those you fought a month ago," Heimdall announced, noticing how they both tensed up in remembrance, "were not troops of those you call AIM. They were part of the organization you call HYDRA."

Steve flinched and rubbed his right arm self-consciously – the arm they mangled to 'get samples' of his skin, muscles, bones, joints and blood.

Thor put a surprisingly delicate hand on his shoulder and stared at Heimdall. He knew his friend fought Hydra and 'died' to bring them down. "Surely, this is but a jest," he said, almost pleading him to deny what he said.

But Thor knew that Heimdall could see everything, and what he said was the truth.

The guardian of the Bifrost shook his head. "No, it's not."

"How- How's this possible?" the Captain whispered, disbelieving. "Hydra has been destroyed, I saw the Red Skull vaporizing into thin air!" Heimdall didn't correct him on the Skull's true fate on Muspelheim. "Even if I couldn't stop them after crashing the plane, Peggy and Howard and the Commandos… they must have known something was wrong…"

"I'm afraid they did not, Captain," Heimdall stated. "They believed their war was over, when it was just out of their sight. Your friends founded Shield to fight the enemies that came forth to threaten your country, but they made an error in what they called 'Operation Paperclip'."

"'Operation Paperclip'?" Steve repeated.

"What is this operation you speak of?"

"SHIELD recruited its own enemies, including a man you, Captain, have met – Arnim Zola."

Steve sucked in a breath. "Zola," he growled.

Thor glanced worriedly between Heimdall and his shield-brother. "SHIELD allowed such a man into their midst?" he questioned, rage already burning into his eyes. Whoever caused Steve pain was getting pummeled into the ground by Mjolnir, repeatedly.

Heimdall nodded. "HYDRA has grown inside of SHIELD, inside of AIM and nearly all of Midgard."

Steve was trembling. His face was locked into an expression of wrathful terror, his eyes showed the fury shimmering in his soul. "Who is at the top of HYDRA, Heimdall?" he bit out.

The guardian glanced at his prince and, seeing the same anger in him, he answered, "Alexander Pierce."

.

When the duo later returned to Midgard, they were ready to destroy half the planet.

Even Tony approached them cautiously. His hair was sticking up in weird directions and his face was dirty with the dust of blown-up Chitauri rifles. "Sooo," he dragged out, "how did it go?"

Steve snarled incoherently at him and stomped off to the 'gym'.

"Cap, wait! Don't move your arm like that- Jesus, you tell me to listen to the doctors and then you do this kind of shit, what the hell- STEVE!" Tony rambled after him and started following him when Thor put a hand on his shoulder.

"We have discovered a grievous threat thanks to Heimdall," he stated. He breathed in and out as the other Avengers turned to him. "SHIELD has been infiltrated by the ones under HYDRA's command."

There was silence for one, stunned second.

"Bullshit," Clint blurted out.

Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Natasha was very still.

"I'm gonna check," Tony said in a strangely high-pitched tone, striding to another section of the 'Party Deck'. "Jarv, pull up the dirtiest dirt you can dig outta SHIELD."

"As you wish, sir."

"Thor, can you get Rogers? He really shouldn't be punching holes into my stuff."

Thor nodded and went down the elevator.

"Birdbrain, Romanoff, are you up for a confession?" Tony sounded as if he were still talking out of shock. "I need to cross-check a whole bunch of things, reports, information and, you know: high clearance, more info, yeah? J can hack into most of it, but Fury is one paranoid I-hope-not-HYDRA bastard, so what do I know? You're our eyes and ears into actual SHIELD/HYDRA past, yay."

"Thrilling," Natasha deadpanned, but she was as tense as her teammates. Then she said, "Do you think Loki knew?"

Clint snapped his head around to look at her. "Loki?"

She nodded. "On the Helicarrier, he told me 'you lie and kill in the service of liars and killers'. I remember, in the… Red Room…" the woman hesitated an instant, in which Clint nodded minutely at her. "I heard people whispering about HYDRA. They were the ones in charge. After the Black Widow Program was destroyed, and the Red Room was gone, I thought that was the end of it." She breathed out. "I thought Loki was referring to how little difference there was between SHIELD and the Red Room."

"If Heimdall told Thor only now," Bruce said, "I don't think Loki knew."

"Well, let's hope HYDRA doesn't go in too deep," Clint concluded and walked to the fridge to get some orange juice. Coffee would just make him think harder on the SHIELD/HYDRA thing, which he didn't want to do at all.

The elevator opened and Thor and Steve walked in.

"Look at who's arrived!" Tony clapped his hands once. "What else did the guardian of the Rainbow tell you?"

"Heimdall told us Director Fury, Hill and Coulson don't know about this, and yet half of SHIELD is a foe."

"There goes my 'not too deep' theory," Clint muttered and started drinking.

"The leader of HYDRA is Alexander Pierce," Steve growled, erratically tightening his grip on the so-called 'super-soldier rehabilitating stress ball Mark 3'.

Clint spat out his orange juice all over the kitchen counter. "The Secretary of Defense? That Alexander Pierce?"

Bruce's 'ten-seconds-from-Hulk-out' bracelet flashed out its warning. "I'll just go over that corner with my headphones," he mumbled and put his headphones on, turned his back on the Avengers and started meditating before Avengers Tower could sport a Hulk-sized hole. He may have whispered that "this is bad for my blood pressure".

"Oh my God – It was Douchebag Pierce that swore Fury into leadership of SHIELD, oh God, Eye-patch's gonna have kittens over this." Tony flickered through a few other files. "Did this guy refuse the Nobel Prize for Peace?"

Steve kept gripping the stress ball. "We have to find HYDRA, all of them," he said through gritted teeth, "before we take everyone out. We can't have them knowing we know."

Natasha nodded. "Did Heimdall give you other names?"

"Aye," Thor said. "He warned us of one Brock Rumlow, his STRIKE team, Jasper Sitwell," here both Clint and Natasha cursed, "John Garret, Grant Ward…" Thor rattled off a dozen other names before he added, "Heimdall told us to beware of Project Insight and Project Centipede, but to never forget that some of the people working for them have been brainwashed – he named the Winter Soldier among them."

The Black Widow's shoulders tensed at the mention of the Winter Soldier.

"Jarv, did you get all of that?"

"Of course, sir. I'm running a research to find all agents who could be part of Hydra due to their connections to these people."

Tony nodded grimly. "Good. Pull up the board."

An holographic board appeared in the middle of the common floor. The symbol of HYDRA laid in its center under the photo of Alexander Pierce. On each of its red tentacles there were pictures of the thirty-odd names Thor reported. From each picture began threads connected to others, of relatives and family and friends who could be HYDRA.

"Hydra isn't only inside Shield," Steve stated, "but also inside of other groups, such as… AIM."

The hesitation made the Avengers – minus Bruce, who was still calming himself down – growl. They weren't going to forget what happened to their Captain anytime soon.

"Jarvis?"

"I've added the AIM scientists to the board, sir," the AI's voice rang out as the photos of the twelve scientists and their thirty-five guards appeared on the hologram, connecting to the pre-existing images and branching out to other known colleagues and friends.

"This," Tony hesitantly said, "is worse than I thought."

.

The next day, the Avengers sat inside the common floor. Everything was in lock down, as the recent Protocol 3 AM entailed.

(It was an in-joke among the Avengers. A drunk Tony had locked himself in his lab at 3 AM with all the alcohol he could hoard in one go to "out-drink y'all, but Spangle's tryin' to stop me, so hear my mighty liver workin' through the speakersss." Jarvis had opened the doors with the equivalent of a human sigh.)

"Who should we tell this?" Bruce asked.

Clint fiddled with an arrow. "Fury and Hill are on our side, right?"

Steve nodded. "They are. But even if we tell them, what can they do? They won't have any more luck than we would, since Sitwell is a Level 6 and no one noticed he's HYDRA. Not to mention Pierce." He shook his head, pursing his lips. "Before everything else, we need more information… and a plan."

Natasha leaned forward on her armchair. "We could do it the usual way and follow them, but there are too many. We'd waste too much time. We should look into Project Insight and Project Centipede first."

"Trying," Tony said, waving his hand and typing something onto another hologram. "But there's something not even Jarvis can push through."

"I presume it's another AI, sir," Jarvis's voice rang out.

"By the way, this project is Level 10. Top of the top secret stuff."

"Level 10?" Clint repeated, disbelieving. He shook his head. "The Avengers Initiative got our information clearance up to Level 8, and Fury hides two whole Levels of info from us? So ungrateful."

"Don't take it personally, Legolas – the only registered Level 10 people are Eye-patch, Douchebag Pierce, and the WSC assholes. Cheer up, we're sneaking into their VIP party and splashing their suits with their own champagne."

The archer snorted. "Better later than never," he deadpanned.

"What are these levels you're all speaking of?" Thor asked, having had enough of not understanding. He knew that, higher the number, higher the trust people had in your abilities and loyalty, but still. What was this 'WSC' they were talking about? What was a 'VIP party'?

"Clearance levels," answered Natasha. "Every Shield agent starts from Level 1 and, if they prove themselves loyal and skilled, they can rise up to Level 6 and 7. A few got into Level 8, such as me, Rogers, Barton and, because they couldn't keep him out, Stark."

"Technically," the billionaire added, "Bruce and Goldilocks are Level 8 too, but, you know. Hammertime can get all the gossip from the all-seeing guardian of the magic Rainbow, and Brucie doesn't really like Shield databases, so what can you do." He shrugged and typed a few more strings of code into the hologram hovering inches from his nose. "I can hack them."

"What Level were the ones dedicated to the Captain's thawing?" Thor asked. "Who was assigned that task?"

Uncertain glances were exchanged in silence.

"Oh God," whispered Bruce. "Hydra could have gotten to you, Steve."

The super-soldier looked sick at the mere chance they could have slipped him something poisonous. He could have died (again, an unhelpful corner of his mind added) and he wouldn't have known a thing. They could have killed him when he was still frozen and dissected him to create their own army of super-soldiers. They could have given him a lethal dose of poison disguised as a new vaccine and he wouldn't have known until it was too late.

Heimdall knew that only two scientists and three guards involved in his thawing were Hydra. The Captain had been lucky.

Tony cut the tension, saying, "Coulson was in charge of overseeing all of your rehabilitation, Spangles."

Clint sagged in relief. "Coulson is as far from Hydra as someone could possibly be, without counting Steve."

"He personally examined each evaluation," Natasha agreed, nodding at the hologram Jarvis had opened at her request. "You've been lucky. The only Hydra agent we know of is Doctor Eugene Bourque, Level 5. He often dealt with hypothermic agents and had been called in once the others realized you had a pulse."

"Imagine his surprise," Clint wryly murmured, a corner of his lips twitching up.

"It's almost like you had a guardian angel," added Bruce, smiling a little. "You know, Coulson."

Steve let out a breath. Thor put his hand on his left shoulder a squeezed lightly. "The Norns wished for us to stand together, my friend. Fear not, for we will fight as one for many years to come."

The Captain's smile didn't reach his eyes.

The Avengers perused Shield's achieves, searching for incongruences and signs of Hydra meddling. They added three other names to their Hydra Board, and were 90% sure that six of those connected to the Hydra agents were part of the organization.

They searched until Tony screamed, "FUCK!"

"What happened now?" Clint muttered as they all crowded around their friend.

"Fury, what the fuck, I agreed only on one Helicarrier, one, not three!"

Steve's blood ran cold, colder than the ice of the Artic. "Three Helicarriers for… Project Insight?"

Thor's frown deepened and he gripped Mjolnir tighter. Three flying fortresses, firing their weapons down on all of Midgard, like a terrifying rain of fire and death? Why would Hydra do this to their own species?

Bruce's bracelet flashed erratically and he excused himself through gritted teeth. Nobody stopped him, busy as they were with their own horror and rage. How could Hydra go so far without anyone's notice? How long would it have taken them to discover this treachery inside Shield?

Fortunately for them, Project Insight was still two years away from launching. They had time, and they had no intention of wasting it.

.

Heimdall watched as the Avengers' 'Hydra Board' grew in size every day for the next three months.

He watched as Steve Rogers paced the common floor by day and prowled the gym and his room by night – and when he was finally out, he was either fighting the daily threat to Midgard or flanking his two Shield teammates in their 'delicate-info-recovery' missions.

He watched as Bruce Banner spent most of his time devising a truth-serum, calming himself down and helping his 'Science bro'; when he shifted into the Hulk, he was fiercely protective and loved smashing their enemies.

He watched as Tony Stark built more and more metal suits, talked to Jarvis and hacked into Shield databases and AIM facilities, stole information from several governments and supposedly-secret agencies. It was surprising with how much he got away with.

He watched as Natasha Romanoff travelled from country to country, searching for information on the Winter Soldier together with her shield-brother Clint Barton, and killing one Hydra head at a time, making it always seem like an accident.

He watched as Thor Odinson smashed AIM humans more viciously, fried more sleeper Hydra agents by 'accident', and turned the 'cold shoulder' to more Shield agents.

"Heimdall!" Tony shouted up at him from the top of Avengers Tower, "Why the fuck don't you help us out down here?! We could use your All-Sight or whatever the hell you wanna call it!"

Thor went back and forth between Asgard and Midgard, which the All-father hardly appreciated.

But, Heimdall admitted to himself, it also meant that Thor could ask him what Jane Foster was up to. He was so busy he didn't visit her as often as he clearly wanted to.

Consequently, the prince knew of her research about the Realm Convergence as soon as she heard about it and Heimdall saw it.

The problem? Thor had called all the Avengers to London to make sure Jane wasn't hurt by her own curiosity. Only Steve Rogers agreed, if only to stop pacing the Tower like a caged beast, forced not to hunt down Hydra if they didn't want the whole world knowing.

Which led, in an unprecedented and un-amusing twist of fate, to the Aether being stuck inside Steve.

.

Next Chapter: "Thor: The Dark World"