Disclaimer: Don't own the Avengers, but thanks for the inspiration.
Authors note: Thanks for all the favorite tags and follows :D Means a lot. Let me know what you think of this there story though :D
Cassandra stared at the man laying in the hospital bed. She'd helped the doctors remove the venom sac from the black panther. No cat she'd ever known had a venom sac, they usually used brute force to get what they wanted, not poisonous bites. But these guys aren't usual are they? Or natural for that matter. The doctors had worked for hours to create the anti-venom and now she watched as they administered it. Clint walked up next to her and stood with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the doctor inject the anti-venom into Bruce's IV line. "Do you understand now?" He asked softly.
"In part." She said, adding in a whisper, "If that was you..." She couldn't bring herself to say what she wanted to say because she wasn't sure she really wanted to say it.
"If that was me what?" He questioned. When she didn't reply he urged on. "What do you mean by that Cas?"
"I have work to do, I need to see if we have any headway on the male." She said as she walked off, fully intent on avoiding the conversation she didn't want to have. She went straight to the lab Director Fury had provided her. He had also given her access to some really nice tracking equipment which she had set up on search grids based upon the females hunting path and behavior. Hopefully she would get a hit on the male or the den sooner rather than later. Despite her urging that she could handle it, Fury had assigned Tony to investigate the genetics of the creature while Cassandra searched for the others. After checking on her search and finding that her satellites hadn't found anything conclusive she headed to Tony's lab. When she arrived knots formed in her stomach and she thought about turning around. Clint was standing in the lab with Tony and Natasha, that all familiar dreading feeling returned. "Stop being such a child." She told herself. With that, she walked in the room. The group stopped talking as she entered. "Why do I feel like I interrupted something?" She asked.
"Don't know, we were just discussing the... weather." Natasha said with a small smile and a glance at Clint.
"They were talking about you." Steve Rodgers said as he walked in behind her.
"He's right, more specifically if you would join the Avenger Initiative or not." Tony piped up.
"No, I won't." She said.
"Tried to tell them that." Clint stated.
"What have you found on the cats?" Cassandra asked Tony in an attempt to change the subject and ignore how well Clint knew her.
"Yeah..." Tony said with a bit of dread as he turned to the computer monitors behind him. "There's Jaguar DNA."
"We expected that." She replied.
"Yes, well, there's also a nice snake cocktail in there. Markers from rattlers, vipers, and cobras."
"Wow, this guys not messing around." Steve said.
"No, neither are the Gamma markers I found." Tony shook his head.
"I have a bad feeling about the whole Gamma Radiation thing." Cassandra said thinking about Bruce. She knew a little about his original condition. It had been Gamma Radiation that had reacted to the serum that had created the Hulk in the first place.
"Yeah, I had concerns as well, but the docs were okay with it." Tony said. "They seem to think that it won't make a difference. Who wants to bet it will?"
"I don't make bets on people's lives." Cassandra stated with a glare meant for Tony.
"The Gamma is why they grew so big?" Clint asked.
"Yes." Tony replied. "And might explain the extreme aggression."
"That's just cat behavior. They are naturally aggressive when necessary. If they don't have anything else to eat, they will hunt and eat people. Kept me employed for several years." Cassandra explained.
"How long do they think it will be before the anti-venom takes effect?" Natasha asked after a short pause and as she glanced over to the monitor that was linked to the camera in the containment capsule.
"They're not even sure it will." Clint said as he watched the monitor thoughtfully.
Cassandra sat staring at her computer screens, her search grid had shown nothing. No sign of the den or the male, so now she was manually searching through satellite pictures of the area. The expected blood rage from the male had yet to come so she had little to go on. The president had lifted the indoor order since there hadn't been any sign of the danger. This made her job a little harder because now there were cars and people out in droves blocking the view of some areas. She had found something, though, that made her hopeful she would find the male in time. She heard the familiar footsteps of Clint's saunter as he entered the room. "It's not nice to sneak up on people, you know." She stated.
"I wasn't trying to sneak up on you." He replied.
"You're sauntering, you were sneaking." She said notably.
"I'm worried, I saunter when I'm worried." He defended himself. "Any luck?"
"Do you have any idea how many large black animals live in New York?" She asked.
"The fact that you're answering with a question means no luck I suppose." He replied without answering her question.
"No, seriously, black dogs and horses seem to be in an abundance." She said as she brought up pictures of the tons of back yards, balconies, and stables filled with black animals.
"Wow, that's a lot of black critters." He commented but didn't sound surprised. "Any big black cats though?"
"The only panthers I have found are the ones in the zoo." She sighed. "I have a feeling we're looking in the wrong places."
"You're supposed to be the expert on these things." Director Fury said as he walked in the room followed by Steve, Tony, Natasha, and Thor. "The Panthera expert, I believe that's what your father said."
"And he's not wrong." Cassandra stated, trying not to sound egotistical, there was enough of that when Tony was in the room. "The Panthera family consists of four breeds of big cats; the tiger, the lion, the jaguar, and the leopard. Now, what we're dealing with," She brought up the pictur3es of the female panther. "is most commonly referred to as a black panther, but that's not a breed in and of itself."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Steve questioned.
"It means that they're a mutation of either leopards or jaguars." Clint spoke up. "I read it in a book." He addressed Cassandra's quizzical stare with a smile.
"Mutations?" Thor asked.
"Yes, genetically the same as their leopard and jaguar cousins except for the one gene that says what color their fur pigmentation is." Cassandra stated. "Now, we know from Tony's DNA analysis that these guys are jaguars."
"What significance does that have?" Fury asked.
"It doesn't really. I actually think the answer is in the actual mutated DNA."
"The fur pigmentation?" Thor asked. "What does hair color have to do with anything?"
"Because DNA that's already changed, or mutated, is easier to change and hide."
"Hide, this guys hardly hiding them." Natasha said with a glance toward the monitor showing inside the containment capsule to a still unchanged Bruce.
"But he was, I found this." Cassandra replied as she pulled up photos of two black panthers from the Central Park Zoo. "These were taken by a few tourists who visited our lovely zoo in New York. If you'll look at the canine teeth," She zoomed in on the panthers faces. "you'll notice they're not canine's at all."
"They're fangs." Steve stated what everyone could see. In the place of the panthers natural canine teeth were the fangs of a snake, no doubt connected to the venom sacs full of deadly poison.
"Wait, I thought you said you hadn't found anything." Clint said, acting hurt that she hadn't shown him the photos earlier when they were talking.
"No, that's what you said. I never confirmed nor denied." Cassandra smiled in that I don't care if you're hurt or not way. "This is the male." She pointed to one of the cats. "And this is a female." She pointed to the other one.
"Are these photos from before they got big? They look normal size to me." Natasha said.
"Which is what worries me." Cassandra said, adding, "These photos were taken this morning after the danger alert was lifted. These cats are at the zoo right now and, judging by their ear and paw development, they are about two months old."
"These are the cubs?" Fury questioned.
"Exactly." Cassandra confirmed.
"Where's daddy?" Tony asked.
"Tell me, Mr. Stark, did you tinker with things when you were a young boy?" Cassandra questioned.
"I was a young boy?" Tony quipped but then answered with a short "Yes."
"And where did you hide your inventions so you wouldn't get into trouble with your parents?" She continued her mock interrogation.
"Two places," Tony held up two fingers. "in plain sight and under my bed."
"In plain sight," Cassandra pointed to the cubs in the photo then brought up another photo outlining the entire zoo. "And under your bed." She said.
"You think this scientist has hidden his mutated cats under the zoo?" Thor asked.
"I wouldn't call him a scientist, but yeah, that's the theory." Cassandra confirmed. "There's old off exhibit cages under the zoo."
"How did you find this?" Fury asked.
"The ID chip in the female. She was originally the female at the zoo, along with her life-long mate, both of them were taken off exhibit four months ago with no reason."
"So we're looking at zoo staff?" Clint asked.
"No, I don't think anyone in the zoo is running the show, someone is helping him though. The underground cages haven't been used in years. We need to shut down the zoo though. If these two get out and hurt someone we're looking at a bigger problem."
"How so?" Steve questioned.
"These guys aren't big enough to eat a whole person in one bite, which means the toxins from the snake cocktail will run rampant in the victim's body. Honestly, I don't know what that could do."
"What do you mean?" Natasha asked.
"The mixture of the mutated DNA and the Gamma Radiation could react, let's just say catastrophically, with human DNA. I'm talking super human status with no ability to suppress the urge to kill because the DNA has been compromised so much there won't be any human left."
"You think their goal is to create a super human capable and willing to kill." Tony stated. "Isn't that a little farfetched?"
"Look at Banner and Rodgers. They're direct results of the same type of experimentation." Clint offered. "No offense, Steve."
"None taken." Steve replied.
"Good point Legolas." Tony agreed.
"I'll have the zoo shut down." Fury said. "You guys get down there now and see what you can find."
"Yes sir." Steve replied with a salute that Cassandra wasn't sure if it was meant to be sarcastic or serious.