Prologue ~

Authors Note: This prologue is just sort of introducing the characters again, and welcoming in some new ones. One in particular, (Mimi Gold) is loosely based off of the Marvel super heroine Songbird. I sort of fell in love with her while playing her in Ultimate alliance 2, so… I simply had to add her into the story. I don't own any of the avengers; there will be a few of my own original characters but other then that everything belongs to Marvel. There will be some smut here and there, for the first part mostly Tony and Pepper.

The couples you are going to see throughout the story are Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers/ O.C, Bruce Banner/O.C Natasha Romanoff/Clint Barton

Hope you enjoy, and that I did these characters some justice ;) This story was created with the help of a role playing partner, and we made this whole story line a little while ago and I'm following everything to the letter, and I owe her a lot for helping me to write this.

Enjoy

~ Love Max

The avengers sat in comfortable silence, munching on their shawarma. Today had been a long day for them… to say the least. Clinton Barton had his feet up on Natasha Romanoff's chair. Thor happily dug into the food that the mortals had created, anxious to try it as much as Tony Stark was; who was now whipping his mouth with a napkin and tossing that gently on the table in front of him.

Bruce Banner nibbled on it nervously, giving the new piece of food a chance as the workers of the Shawarma join worked wordlessly behind them, sweeping up the rubble of the aftermath of what had happened.

Steve Rogers stared blankly again, taking occasional large bites of the food as he considered the day they just had. They ended it on a good note though… the workers even allowed them to have this meal free. Despite the fact they agreed, 'Shawarma after', they dealt with Loki… Tony insisted otherwise as they went out for the food. They decided why not… it's not like Loki was going anywhere anytime soon. The silence finally ended with Steve nervously clearing his throat.

"We should get back to Stark Towers now." He said as a matter of fact. "Just get this last little part dealt with and than we can… well we can all be on our way." He nodded in approval to his own plan.

To his surprise Tony nodded in agreement, stretching and then standing up; groaning in protest because his body was so sore from the battle they all just had. "Yeah actually, we should. I've got a call to make." He nodded to himself. Pepper. He knew she was going to be worried out of her mind, and probably will be throwing death threats his way for – ironically enough – scaring her about his almost-death. Tony chuckled at the thought of an angry Pepper. He missed her, it hadn't been long at all since they've been separated but he still missed her. And he had a deal to take up with her.

Natasha smiled a little knowingly, knowing exactly who he had to call. She remembered last time Tony didn't properly in form her of something like this and she found out over the phone. Tony narrowed his eyes at the red-head. "Whatcha laughing at, Natashalie?" He chuckled.

Natasha simply rolled her eyes. "Nothing Stark." She answered simply, as they all silently rose from the table and headed to Stark Tower.

Tony clapped Bruce on the back suddenly. "You my friend; are going to love this. Stark Tower is like candy land, it's my baby. Well… 88% of my baby." He smirked to himself, knowing Pepper had the other 12 %. Well… probably not for long. She'll probably eventually talk him into handing her 50 % on a silver platter.

Bruce looked at him a little in confusion, but decided to shrug it off. It was Tony, after all. He could be a pretty weird guy. "I'm sure." He replied with a chuckle.

At stark tower

A couple hours later, after successfully chaining up Loki and handing him over to Nick – the avengers were resting at Stark Tower. Thor was going to leave soon, and bring Loki with him. The avengers had all came to that agreement, but tonight they'd just relax.

"Finally." Tony groaned, walking back into his own house. He frowned at the damage, and let out a sigh thinking of how much Pepper would freak. Pepper… oh shit I forgot to call. Tony remembered, clenching his eyes shut and hating how stupid he was.

Bruce had wandered into the lab to make a call of his own and mess around with all the 'toys' Tony had down there. Natasha and Clint were sitting on the couch together and talking quietly, Thor had a drink and Steve was looking out the window onto New York, peacefully silent.

Steve still really didn't know what to do or where to go. This world was so confusion, and despite the fact he was older than a lot of the people in this world he felt like a child. He didn't know things that children knew so easily. His mind wavered back to the day he woke up. He closed his eyes as he remembered the ball game playing on the radio, and the dark-brown haired woman that walked in and tried to talk to him calmly.

He remembered recognizing the game, every sound he knew because he was there. At that game. He panicked, wondering what Hydra had done to him now and everything after that was a blur. The soldiers, running out onto the streets of New York… he opened his eyes and sighed. He did meet that girl again. Her name was Allison Meyer, she worked for S.H.E.I.L.D. everyone addressed her has 'Agent Snake' though. She'd been there for him to answer all of his questions, and help him get set up with an apartment and find a gym to go to. She was assigned to him, so if anything came up that he needed help on or that complicated him she would help him.

He'd asked her what her code name meant, and she laughed, looking down and responded simply with, 'I'm an interrogator, it's sort of what I do best. I am really good at infiltrating and getting information, it's my speciality. It's how I was recruited. According to Tasha, I infiltrate like a 'snake'. It's sort of how I got my name, it stuck.' She'd smiled at him after that, and then went back home afterwards and left him to himself.

He would have to call her again after this, tell her about everything. About how confused he still was. The world had evolved so much… so much that there were other planets out there with others beings that they had met and fought themselves. Hell, one was in the room with them now.

Steve looked over his shoulder as he heard Tony on the phone, sounding nervous and scrambling for words. It made him chuckle to himself, he'd never seen Tony nervous before. He was always so confident. Annoyingly so, actually.

Bruce was down in the lab and was eagerly playing around with everything he could find. Tony said it was alright to come down here, and ask JARVIS for assistance on anything he wasn't sure about. Bruce liked Tony, all and all. He wasn't the usual sort of friend he would have but he liked having him around and thought there was a good potential long-lasting friendship between them.

He logged onto a computer, gazing over some stuff on social networking sites to see what people were already thinking of 'The avengers'. The reactions were mixed, some people were taking a great liking too them and seeing them as very valuable people. Others… not too much. Thinking all of this was their fault and that they brought down this invasion on their heads. Bruce sighed. What did he expect? No one was ever going to see the hulk as a hero. He was glad he had a little bit of a better hold on him now… he could only control the hulk in hulk form if he shifted willingly.

He logged into his skype account before, and he saw Mimi Gold log on. Not to long after, she sent him a request for a video chat. He smiled and happily accepted it. Her face filled the screen before him. It was much better quality now, since he'd sent her that new webcam. You could easily see her heart-shaped face, framed by fine brown hair and milky chocolate brown eyes. "Hey superhero." She greeted. Bruce laughed immediately, looking down. He had expected that sort of reaction from her.

"So you heard, huh?" He asked.

"Um, Bruce better question is, who hasn't?" she laughed. Bruce smiled at her. "You shifted willingly, didn't you?" She challenged him. He fought off the need to blush. "Mimi…"

"You did! You did it willingly, and it worked… didn't it? I was right, wasn't I?" she questioned him insistently with a bright smile. A smile he loved. There was a lot to say about Mimi Gold. For starters, how he met her. He was used to talking to people online about his powers, about his problems. Searching for help and answers. The first time he spoke to Mimi online, was after the experiment had gone wrong. When he needed to hide. He'd come in contact with ' ', another person online who'd been helping him with his powers. He asked him where to go to hide and never be found, and he gave him the number of a girl named Mimi Gold.

Because no one knew how to hide, like Mimi Gold.

Of course, she would need something in return for hiding him away and setting him into the perfect place. Never to be found again. Mimi was an underground, illegal costumed wrestler along with most of her 'family'. There was a lot to get into about Mimi, but she was adopted into her family and lifestyle when she was six. Her past is something that is just too long and complicated to talk about momentarily.

Doing things illegal day by day, she knows how to hide. Accompanied by her complicated past she received some… abilities. Abilities she preferred to keep hidden and only told Bruce about much later on when she trusted him.

A proper explanation of how she received those powers would require to be going into her past, and there is no time for that. But, Gold's enhanced vocal cords were bionically altered and enhanced. She has the ability to generate a high-pitched, ear-splitting, earth-shattering supersonic scream that compared to a jet engine passing 5 feet from one's ear. On top of that, she can convert sound into a malleable form of energy that has physical form and mass, termed "solid sound". She can initially create simple 3-dimensional sound/mass constructions. She shapes and animates these by mental command and they only remain in existence for as long as she wills them to. She can "fly" by generating solid sound "wings".

Her powers are obviously, quite interesting. She can manipulate sonic waves, sound waves. She was easily one of a kind, but was worried of the popularity her powers could bring her and keeps them secret, lives a different life-style.

But back to what her terms were… she wanted him to help her gain the technology and give her lessons to learn what she wanted too. Mimi was very interested in science, particularly sound waves and radiology… hoping to gain an understanding on her powers scientifically.

Even after she hid him away, they stayed in contact and stayed friends. Even today they still are. Bruce laughed at her gently, but nodded. "Yeah… yeah you were right."

"I told you." She shot back with a smile, narrowing her eyes and looking in the background. "Where are you? I've never seen you in this environment before." She gave a small laugh. Bruce scratched the back of his head nervously. "Uh… the lab of Tony Stark." He said.

Mimi's eyes widdend. "T-Tony Stark? Like, Iron man?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and Bruce nodded. "Yeah, the very one."

"Huh." She stated. "Well… be careful around the guy. I know him from a couple years back, he wasn't the nicest, best guy to be around." She laughed a little. Bruce chuckled. "Well he can be a… little full of himself but I think all and all he's a good guy." Bruce offered her a smile. "How are things in Wyoming?"

"Good, good. I just fixed my laptop it sort of… crashed again." She laughed exhaustedly. "I'm sorry to hear that. Sorry I couldn't help with that, I was sort of-"

"Saving the world? Don't sweat it." Mimi interrupted with a smile. "Alright rage monster, I actually have to go, but we'll talk again soon, okay?" she told him with a smile, looking over her shoulder as someone called her name.

"Okay Mimi. We really need to catch up soon… it's been a long time since we've talked." Bruce said, and she nodded with a scoff. "Believe me, I know. I really think we should meet each other soon Banner, face to face." She said. Bruce chuckled. "We've been saying that for a while, get to finally work with each other face to face, but you always bail out on me." He shrugged.

Mimi smiled. "I won't this time. I promise. I just have a lot on my plate and… I need a break. A long one. With a lot of science and no violence for a while. As much as I love the ring I need a break from underground fighting for a little while…" she laughed. "Alright… I really should go now. Bye Banner." She said, Bruce said goodbye himself before she logged off. He sighed for a moment, before going back to his fiddling around of Tony's equipment.

Tony swore, calling Pepper for the ninth time in a row. "C'mon Pep, pick up." He grumbled, swearing as the phone went straight to voice mail. "Mother of…"

"Tony?" that familiar voice rang. Tony was surprised, he pivoted and sure enough it was her. His Pepper Potts, standing there in the flesh with a scared to death expression on her face that was moulding into relief. And then anger, Tony knew she was angry, but he didn't care. His lips curled into a smile.

"Pep!" He said back excitedly. She approached him with her face twisted in anger. "You… you called me! Before you went into that damn hole! I – I thought that – that you were…" she searched for words in a panic, and he read her expression, running up to her and pinning her in a bear hug, wrapping his arms tightly around her and holding her in his embrace.

Pepper was angry, but she was so happy. He was okay, Tony was alright. "You almost killed yourself!" she scolded in an angry tone. Tony shook his head.

"You can't get mad at me for that Pep. I did what I had to do, and I'd do it over again." He told her without fear of her reaction. "To know that you are safe… to make sure no one would ever hurt you? I'd do it again and again. It really wasn't that heroic of a move as everyone seems to think. All I could think about was you, and if I lost you… I couldn't live. I did it for you, to protect you and make sure you were safe because there was no way in hell I was going on without you. So in the long run, it was kind of a selfish move."

Pepper looked blankly at Tony once he finished his speech. She was mad yes, she was mad he'd almost died and had never come back to her. But right now she didn't care. He was alive and breathing in front of her. She hit him once hard on the chest, and he looked at her with confusion before she crashed her lips to his.

Tony's eyes remained open for a moment in slight surprise. He soon realized she was still pissed as hell, but she'd forgiven him and she loved him. He framed her face in his hands and kissed her back.

Steve, Thor and Clint starred at the scene with blind confusion. Natasha didn't though, she of course already knew about he undeniable chemistry and now relationship between genius billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark and the capable smart beautiful CEO Pepper Potts whom also had an iron patience.

"Is what I think is happening, happening?" Steve asked with confusion. Natasha nodded. "Why yes it is." She laughed. "Tony has a girlfriend?" He asked. Natasha nodded. "He doesn't seem like the type…" He said in surprise.

"Well he certainly wasn't for years." Pepper said, surprising Steve as he looked up and seeing Pepper break the kiss to speak to him, leaving Tony with a frown on his face. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, pulling her close to him in a possessive fashion. "But I am now and that's what matters." Tony said pointedly. Pepper kissed his cheek and gently peeled away from his touch. "Hello, my name is Pepper Potts it is good to finally meet you all." She smiled. "Hello again, Natasha."

"Hello Pepper." Natasha greeted with a smile, and the two women hugged. They had become close after Pepper was informed of where she really worked and who she really was. "Wow… I mean, I'm meeting the woman who tamed the beast that is Tony Stark." Steve laughed. "I've only known the guy for a day and I didn't think I'd ever see the day." He chuckled. Pepper smiled gently in response.

"It takes patience, as you can imagine. Tony is a handful, it can be a world of pain sometimes-"

"Hey!" Tony scoffed, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrow at his girlfriend.

"-But it's worth it all the while. I do love him. More than anything, it's been a hard and long journey but I'm in it for the long haul. I've known him for years; I've learned to put up with him." Pepper smiled gently. Steve could easily see how anyone could fall in love with such a nice woman but he's not sure how an arrogant guy like Tony landed her. Steve shook her hand when she offered it.

"You must be Thor." Pepper said, looking at the large, long-haired Norse god with curiosity. He nodded. "Yes my lady and you are Mrs. Stark?" He questioned. Pepper laughed gently. "Not quite, I am dating Tony though. It is nice to meet you." Thor said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips, kissing it.

"Okay, that's enough with the introductions." Tony said instantly, pulling his girlfriend back into his arms. "How did you even get here anyways?" Tony asked, turning to his girlfriend. Pepper laughed. "I have my ways. Being a powerful CEO and knowing quite a few pilots personally, I have my ways. I had to know if you were okay." Pepper said to Tony. Tony smiled down at her, hooking her chin under his finger and pulling her up for a kiss. Pepper kissed him for a moment before pulling away with a giggle. "You guys should go now, I need some alone time with my girlfriend."

Pepper hit him on the chest again. "Tony! I am sorry, don't listen to him you can all stay as long as you want." I smiled.

Thor smiled too. "Thank you for the welcome but I must go… I have to bring Loki back to my father and imprison him once and for all." Thor sighed. "Loki?" Pepper asked.

"That guy's brother." Tony said, gesturing to Thor has if he was trying to make him less attractive to Pepper or something. "He was responsible for the attack, he led it but hulk took care of him." Clint piped up.

"Dr. Banner? Is he here as well?" Pepper asked. Tony nodded. "Down in the lab, tinkering around."

"You must really like him then, you never let anyone other than Rhodey and I down in that lab." Pepper laughed. Tony shrugged. "I do, he's a smart guy and he deserves the equipment to help him do what he does best. Besides, I was checking up on him to see what he was doing down there and he was web chatting a very pretty girl. Long straight brown hair, brown eyes, it'd be nice for the guy to have a lady." Tony chuckled and Pepper only rolled her eyes.

"You have someone special, Rogers?" Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.

Steve looked down with a sad expression that Pepper saw immediately. She gave him a soft face of sympathy. "Uh… not exactly." He replied.

"Not exactly? What does that mean, too shy to talk to the girl Spangles?" Tony questioned. Pepper hit him for the third time today.

"Tony, butt out it isn't your business." Pepper scoffed. Steve's heart dropped as he thought about Peggy. "Sorry honey." Tony apologized, kissing the side of her head.

"And you hammer boy?" Tony asked Thor. Thor looked at the people around the room. "Do I have a woman? I do. Her name is Jane Foster. She is a woman of science, she is truly the most brilliant woman I have ever met. She took me in, showed me humility… and I won't get to see her." Thor looked down sadly. "I have to bring my brother back home."

Pepper looked at him sympathetically. Tony smiled gently at his girlfriend, loving how big her heart was. "Well… maybe you could come back Thor? Come and see her again?"

"I don't know if my father will have enough magic by then to summon me back." Thor sighed. Pepper moved from Tony's arms, walked to Thor and whispered something in his ear. His eyes widend in excitement.

"Would it be a problem for you to do that?" He asked Pepper. "I would not want to be a burden."

"Of course not, it would be my pleasure. As long as you think you can stick to your part of the plan then I think it would work out perfectly." Pepper smiled. Tony's eyebrows furrowed. "Plan? What plan?" He asked. Pepper only smiled mischievously.

"Pep!" Tony groaned.

A/N: So that was the prologue, please let me know what you thought Like I said before, this was really only the re-introduction to the characters and introducing two more characters that will become a major part of the series. Hope you enjoyed and want some more!

~ love Max