Exposed

A/N: Hi, I am kat :)! This is a my first fic... ever and it was written with the help of a dear friend LAliceS. It contains an OC named Dr. Andrea Blythe Asher, please give it a fighting chance; a lot of effort, passion, and time was put into this and there is still more to come!

R/R Please and Thank You!

Chapter 1

xXx

No. Not again. The metal demon bears its' jagged teeth, lets out a shrill screech, and proceeds to tear into her body, ripping her flesh like delicate cloth. White hot with pain, each attack left bits of the serrated teeth in her body. She thrashes at it, even begs and pleads for it all to stop. Blood sputters from her mouth and her chest heaves for air as her lungs fill with scarlet fluid. She needs to get the liquid out, release the pressure. She desperately grasps at the many twisted shards that protrude from punctured organs. She pulls frantically at the foreign bits and pieces, but only makes the wounds deeper. The thick liquid only pumps out of her body faster. She tries to claw her way out but there is no escape. She realizes where she is now, as her cold hole-ridden body slowly loses feeling. She lay there in a heap of contorted metal, the remnants of a car.

Who had been in the car with her? Her sleepy eyes scan the twisted metal for signs of her parents. Their names pass through her scarlet-stained lips in a shaky breath. Now that the searing pain is gone, she realizes that dying isn't too terrible. The cool calming shadows pull her into the dark, wrapping around her until she is almost swallowed whole. Struggling to draw in her last breath against the weight of death that anchors her to the pavement, she gives in to the shadows, and her eyes flutter shut. It's similar to dreaming, floating even she feels weightless, until she is awoken by an animistic roar.

The muscles in her throat constricted the passage of air, throwing her into a fit of dry heaving. As she gasped for breath, Andrea quickly realized that the blood no longer threatened to drown her. Her head throbbed as her eyes adjusted surroundings in the dark. Just enough light leaked in through the curtains, allowing her to make out the furniture of her one-bedroom apartment. She was no longer on the pavement, no longer slipping into the shadows. She was alive. This is further confirmed when she pulled at her over-sized shirt finding that she is soaked in sweat instead of the sticky sanguine fluid that covered her minutes ago in her nightmare.

The clock that sat next to her bed read 4 A.M. Andy had a meeting with SHEILD at 8, but there really was no use trying to go back to sleep, especially when the metal demon was lurking in the recesses of her mind. She climbed out of bed and wiped the sleep from her eyes as she shuffled toward the tiny household's modest bathroom. She removed the drenched night shirt from her back. Stopping only after she had disposed of all the clothing that clung to her figure.

The mirror caught her eye and a familiar face looked back at her. Her eyes surveyed the expanse of skin before her. Only a trained eye could see the thin spindly scars that marked her body, the wounds healed cleanly for being so destructively put there. She traced each faded imperfection with the tip of her pointer finger lightly, imagining them melting into her skin, like her digit could somehow erase each flaw. She hesitated when she came to the longest scar that marred her flesh. It started just above her left hip bone and reached up to the patch of skin that rested above her heart. She pulled her finger over the mark with care. As if the wound would reopen if she pressed too hard; releasing everything she tried so desperately to hold back. She withdrew her hand from its mindless task and wiped the tears from her eyes. She exhaled a shaky breath, ripping her from the trance like state that had taken over her person.

The patter of the shower was inviting, and she hastily stepped into its scalding embrace. The burn numbed her thoughts, chasing away the residual feelings that muddled in her brain. She could afford to waste time, so she stood there for what seemed like hours, letting the water beat a rhythm into her body. When emerged from the shower, she did so regretfully, toweling off her dark hair and donning a robe.

She retreated to the kitchen. Manila folders marked with the SHIELD logo waited for her on the kitchen table. She leafed loosely through them, letting her eyes graze over the images and text. Andy had read through all their files, several times in fact. She had studied every aspect, researched each character trait. Each of the Avengers had troubled pasts at some point; most had family issues, trust issues. It was hard to build a strong team on lack of trust, let alone a team that was supposed to protect the world. This was her purpose, to make sure that this team was stable; to make sure their destructive behaviors were limited to evil and aliens and not their own psyche.

Fury had made sure she was ready, sent her off to a psychiatric college to keep her busy and out of trouble. She smiled when as the memory came to her. She was better than most at her job for a reason. She had an advantage where most did not. Andy had the ability to peak into places that were normally private; she could see people's thoughts, emotion, and feelings. Everyone's mind resembled a house; this way a person's thought could be organized, not thrown at her all at once. Each person had their own house locked to all others, Andy however had a master key, and had yet to find a lock that it could not unlock.

After hours of gathering her thoughts and a cup of lemon tea, Andy slipped into one of her best dress suits. She ran her fingers through her slightly damp hair and pulled it back into a bun. She smoothed the fabric against her skin, removing any wrinkles that appeared. Glancing in the mirror, she added just a swipe of crimson lipstick to her lips, before pulling on a pair of pumps and heading out the door.

Bruce Banner paced at the fore of his bed, his mind clouded with the haunting memories of his past. His mind ran through the familiar list of names of those killed and injured through his inability to control the monster within his mind, the shadow imbued in his very being. Joining the avengers meant that he willingly let the other guy take control, but at a cost. Innocents always were caught in the crossfire: a young man, an elderly woman, a small family. And Betty.

Betty.

Even two years after her death, the dull ache of her passing hadn't left Bruce. He reached for his wallet on the nightstand. Buried beneath a sleeve of identification cards and passports was a creased photograph of Betty's smiling face. He sat on the edge of his bed and held the photograph between his hands. His throat tightened.

Guilt cascaded over his emotions. "I couldn't save her. After everything that happened, he won. I lost. Betty lost." A high-pitched wail slipped through his throat and his shoulders shook with his dry sobs. His hands curled into fists, wrinkling the picture at familiar creases.

After a time, he stood and folded the photo. He moved as if to place the photo back into his wallet, but paused. He breathed deeply from his diaphragm. "I need to let her go." He knelt, opened the bottom drawer of his chest of drawers, and slid the photograph under the neatly folded stack of little-used, more formal clothes. He closed the drawer with a sigh. Even the simple act seemed to weigh heavily on his shoulders. "It has to be done," he told himself. "I need to move on."

He sighed again, then made preparations for the day.

She sat to the right of the Fury, facing the wall with the door. A mug of tea pulled to her lips, concealing her slight smile. Fury was fuming at Tony; he had called declaring that he would be late.

"Damn Stark, wouldn't even be on time to save the world." He grumbled, the rest of the thought lost under her breath, more obscenities surely followed in his thoughts. She checked. They did.

Her hands absorbed the heat from the warm ceramic; she greedily inhaled the calming vapors as a tall blond entered the room.

She was not surprised when none other than Captain America was the first to make an appearance. Steve Rogers promptly took the seat across from her, but not before greeting Andy with a warm smile and a nod of the head. The captain made no attempt to make a conversation, so she effectively used the time to peak into the windows of the house that was Steve's mind. She was careful to avoid eye contact, choosing to look at the wall just behind the broad shouldered man. Steve's house was a small modest home, surrounded by a white picket fence. "The American Dream", she smiled at the reference. She peaked in windows, just as a curious bystander would. Steve was clueless to the fact that she was now wading through his thoughts, his memories, and his feelings. She caught glimpses of a beautiful brown haired woman and young brown eyed solider, both laced with feelings of regret, longing, and loss. Snippets of the war flooded her senses, gunfire rang out in her consciousness and she flinched. Her stare broken from the wall, she quickly retreated from his memories.

A disheveled man made his way into the room; his apathy toward his appearance was evident. His hair stuck out in odd directions, and light stubble was apparent on his jaw line. His faded tweed jacket had far too many rips and wrinkles to be presentable. Peeking out from under the suit jacket was a frayed purple shirt; of which, the collar was off kilter from the button he had missed. He slumped into his chair and fixed his eyes upon the surface of the table as if it was painful to look at anything else.

An unsettling sensation crawled underneath her skin and static threatened to drown the thoughts from her mind. It was not his appearance alone that put her off: it was his whole being. The grass that wrapped around his house was an omen of death, brown and untended for what looked like many decades. The wood siding had rotten off in many places and what good pieces that were left clung desperately to the side of the structure. The entrance was marked with a door that had broken down so many times that it hasn't been bothered to be replaced. Cracked ever so slightly, the shadows called here to take steps closer, to enter the broken house.

"Let's get down to business." Fury's stern voice brought her to realization that another had slipped into the room. The fire-haired woman had taken the seat farthest away, giving her the best vantage point of the area. The room was absent of two members of the team, one was expected to be late, but the other was to be here by now. She questioned if Fury had intentionally left out the second member but her question was answered by a voice that came from behind her.

"To defeat the Huns," Clint cracked.

An awkward giggle escaped her throat which was further emphasized by the look that formed on the unknowing soldiers face. An unpretentious smile found its way onto Bruce's face, but left as quickly as it appeared. The encounter with the assassin should have been more unsettling, the way he had sneaked behind her without her sensing any emotion.

"Barton." The director silenced the room once more.

"Yeah, yeah, get on with the meeting." He countered.

"You are here because certain stresses have begun to wear down on the team and it is starting to show in your performance as protectors. "

"Wait. And we're having this meeting without Tony here?"

"Mr. Stark will be here shortly, please get off the file cabinets and take a seat." The marksman agilely hopped down and took a seat next to his assassin companion.

"As I was saying. Ya'll are all kinds of messed up, and refuse to acknowledge this fact. So, I have brought in an associate to help with this matter," he gave a nod in Andy's general direction. "You will be meeting with her both individually and as a group. She will observe you in several personal meetings in here office and also at some point shadow you in your daily tasks in Stark Tower." he gestured for Andy to stand.

She pulled the mug from her lips and stood, lightly brushing the wrinkles from her skirt. "Morning everyone," a polite smile emerged upon her lips. "I am Doctor Andrea Asher, and as Director Fury has said, I'm here to …."

"Asher."

The name roared through Bruce's mind like an avalanche. Unbidden, his eyes lifted to see the stranger for the first time. Except she wasn't a stranger. He nearly jumped out of his seat. He knew the face; it haunted his dreams. His nightmares.

"Asher."

The surname appeared thrice on his list of casualties: a man, a woman, and their daughter. They were killed a decade ago in a car wreck during a battle with Him. He could remember pulling the girl's limp body from the twisted metal in an attempt to save her. He could remember the blood staining her lips.

Her lips were still red.

Still bloodied.

He dug his fingers into his knee. No. A ghost. It was impossible. His heart thudded in his chest. Sweat gathered on his brow. The situation was growing unsafe. Bruce could feel the Other Guy creeping into his consciousness. "No." Bruce's jaw clenched. He had to remove himself from the room, least he put the others in danger.

He made to stand, but firm hands pushed himself back into his seat. "Hey, the life of the party just got here; don't just get up and leave." As he took his seat next to the doctor, in a lower voice so that only Bruce could hear, Tony Stark whispered, "It's all right, buddy. I've gottcha."

The reassuring touch was enough to calm Bruce a bit, but his body remained tense. He focused on his breathing and tried to force his heart rate down, for he could feel the Other Guy creeping into his consciousness-out of the dark-but couldn't focus. All he could see was the blood of her lips against her white teeth as she spoke, but her words never filtered through the blood rushing in his ears—neither did the warning beep of his heart monitor or the concerned words from the other members of his team. His vision began to blur. There was no stopping it, now. The turn was inevitable.

But he could get away, keep the others safe.

He abruptly stood, knocking over the chair. Doctor Banner stumbled to the door, shaking hands fumbling with the handle as he fled. He ran blindly through the corridor, knocking against the walls and pushing past any obstacle. Then he lost control.

An enormous roar echoed through the building, followed by the crash of breaking walls and floors. Doctor Asher stood from her seat as the Avengers leaped into action. Tony hefted a red metal briefcase and it moved on its own, unfolding and gripping his body, forming into a full Iron Man suit. Steve, Natasha, and Clint were already springing into action and rushing into the hall. Fury swore through his teeth. The Hulk had wrecked the hall and fallen through the floor to the level below, where the devastation continued. Tony jumped through the opening and barreled off after the green colossus in a streak of red and a fiery blast. Clint, with his ever-present bow and arrows, followed.

The Hulk smashed onward, punching holes through walls and peering through for a moment before moving away from the hole. He continued repeating the action, as if searching for something. He roared again and tore through a wall. Wires sparked as they swung freely from the hastily remolded structure. A broken pipe divulged a torrent of water that spilled onto the floor and flooded the hall. Stark breezed through the opening, but the others were halted by the electrified water.

Barton's voice sounded in Tony's ear, "Stark! Unless you can direct the Hulk and get him back to us, you're on your own." Before he could respond with his usual snarky manner, a large, green fist knocked Tony out of the air. He spun into and through a wall. Drywall dust rained upon the gleaming red metal of the Iron Man suit. Tony pulled himself from the rubble. He looked to his left and saw a huddled group of office workers. Tony motioned for them to hurry onward before the Hulk saw them; there was no telling what he might do if he saw them.

Fury's voice was in his ear, "Tony, what's your location?" JARVIS automatically relayed the information to Director Fury. "Okay. Keep him cornered."

Tony leaped up and tackled the Hulk from behind, wrapping his metal-clad arms around Hulk's neck, "Hey big guy! Calm down!"

She had followed Fury from the meeting room and into the hall; demolition was the evidence of the hulk's wrath. The Director's gun was drawn, held in his hand with a vice grip, detracting none of his precision with his weapon of choice. Sounds that could only mean pure destruction indicated that the beast hadn't wandered too far from the epicenter of the chaos.

An inhuman bellow pulled their attention to new sink hole that developed not far from the meeting room. Fury gruffly commanded the others through a comm. " Tony—what's your location? Okay, keep him cornered. "

He turned to her, his calm face showed little distress over the situation that had developed. With one glance she sensed what he wanted her to do, but he punctuated the thought with the spoken command. "You'll have to take the stairs down one floor, continue down the hall, stay right, and just follow the noise. Detain him by any means necessary."" She froze, eyes glazed over, she knew she would be asked to do this but so soon? He paused allowing the words to be absorbed by her rigid figure. "Andrea- You know what to do." He gestured with the gun toward the door that held the stairwell. Any retort was caught in her clenched throat, and she jogged to her death like any good solider would.

Hulk roared. The monstrous representation of a man flung Iron Man from off his muscled, green back. Tony righted himself in the air before crashing into any more walls. "Hey, you need personal space, I get it, but I kind of need this office space, so if you would kindly stop wrecking it . . . no? I didn't think that would work." He tried to distract the Hulk by bludgeoning him with a swing of his metal-clad fist, but the irradiated gargantuan seemed not to notice.

This struck Tony as odd.

The Hulk was staring down the hall in the direction of the far stairway. A feminine figure was opening the door. Asher. "You don't want to be in this area, sweet cheeks. Let the grown-ups handle this one." The Hulk started to charge at her. Tony Stark yelled, "GET OUT OF HERE!" He tried to pull the Hulk's attention away from the woman. Even faced with the not-so jolly green giant, Dr. Asher did not flee. Her body trembled, but her steps were sure. Her steps toward the Hulk. She stopped suddenly, her eyes wide, "So dark," she murmured. The Hulk was nearly upon her, his hands stretching to crush her, and no amount of force from Iron Man could stop him. Hulk stooped, and wrapped his arms around Andrea Blythe Asher in what Tony Stark was sure were her last moments.

In one swift, jerked motion Andy was ripped from her feet and cradled. Her face smashed into the hard muscles of the green beast's chest. She struggled which effectively made the Hulk clutch her close with an even greater force. Her body screamed under the strain, the air pushed unnaturally from her lungs. The Hulk looked down to her oxygen-starved face, and soon a large hand, pointer finger extended, came into view. The giant finger probed her visage, anguish and loss seeping into her skin as it traveled across her face, lingering on the crimson stained lips.

"You know what to do" Fury's words echoed through her mind in a moment of clarity. Andrea gasped for breath and with the remaining strength she could muster; she braced herself to enter the disheveled house, following the call of the now deeper, larger shadows. As she walked through the broken threshold, the darkness retreated, ebbed away by the light that was brought with the presence of the intruder.

When her eyes adjusted, she noted a small closet, a thin film of light peaked from under the crack of the door. The sounds of a man's sobs became clearer as she made her way to the curious closet. Andrea pulled open the door, revealing the raggedy man she had seen earlier. His knees were pressed close to his chest, hand visible tearing into his legs. He looked up to her through pathetic, watery orbs, his mouth hung open with . . . was it fear? She volunteered her hand warmly to him, and he looked to it questionably. He was hesitant, considering the offer before he released his legs and placed his large hand into hers. She pulled him to his feet with ease and guided him from the closet.

Before they could exit the house, she was ripped from her train of thought and confronted with her threatened life once again. Her lungs collapsed onto themselves and she passed into a forced unconsciousness. She didn't experience the Hulk shrinking form, or the inevitable passing of the more-than-exhausted man into unconsciousness.

Her limp body was still in the custody of Bruce Banner's arms.

A/N: If you made it this far I would like to personally thank you. I would love to hear what you think of the fic! Leave me a message.~Kat