The trip to Ireland was… interesting to say the least, if inconclusive.

The tracker had led them to the middle of nowhere. The closest sign of civilisation being Wexford, a small place with fields upon fields, Caravans dumped haphazardly beside sporadic manor houses. This is where they began their search.

A search that led them on a wild goose chase…

…Almost literally.

According to the tracker… the thing they were following… was a Hawk.

"A Hawk?" Clint asked, disbelievingly as Tony held the tracker up to it, to the place where the radiation was at its strongest "We've been following a Hawk?"

"Seems like it." Tony started, his eyebrows knitting together as he stared at the Hawk. "I mean, unless the person is underground, then it's the only thing around, except for us, for miles."

The Hawk stared at them from its perch in the tree, squawking loudly.

"A Hawk?" Clint repeated, the Hawk's gaze seemed to be targeted on him, it's beady eyes almost seemed… pleading. It spread its wings and flew…

Straight onto Clint's head.

"It's on my head." He said quietly, panicking internally as Tony guffawed loudly.

"Maybe we should start calling you Hawkhead instead!" He laughed as Clint glared at him.

"Get. This. Thing. OFF ME!" He screeched as he ran in circles, his hands flapping at the bird. "Get off. Get off. Get OFF!"

This only caused Tony to laugh louder and Natasha to fight a smile as Steve rolled his eyes.

"Clint stop fooling around" He said sternly, Clint stopped and the Hawk flew off his head and hovered above it, staring intently at Steve. "Now, this operation has proved unnecessary, We should just get back in the Quinjet and go back to the Mansion. Tony you may need to tweak that device a bit more before we just follow it blindly again."

The group agreed, Tony frowning at the tracker confused, and set off back to the Quinjet. Clint fussing over his hair frowning as he mumbled about demonic birds.

It wasn't until they were in sight of the jet that they were being followed…

… by the Hawk.

"Uh guys?" Clint started as he stared at the ground "either my shadow has gotten really weird… or that damn Hawk is still hovering above my head…"

Tony tried to hide a smile.

"Looks like you attract Hawks, Hawkeye" Tony smiled, a hint of laughter hidden in his voice "Don't worry I don't think it'll follow us onto the jet."

It didn't…

…not really.

The group landed back at Avengers Mansion, absolutely certain that they'd left the bird back in Ireland where it belonged.

But…

"Ah home sweet home!" Clint started as he began to open the quinjet doors "No demonic birds here!"

He opened the doors fully… and was bombarded by the Hawk which perched on his head, doing the bird equivalent of hyperventilating.

"Please tell me it's not that damn Hawk on my head…" Clint said calmly. "please"

Tony burst out laughing as Natasha let out a small giggle before clamping her hands over her mouth, her eyes dancing. Even Steve cracked a smile.

Meanwhile at Avengers Mansion…

"Right," Bruce started as he stared at Tony, Steve, Clint, and Natasha's retreating backs as they headed to the Quinjet. "I'm going to go check on the girl, see if she's calmed down yet."

Bruce began to walk out of the conference room, Bela hot on his heels.

"Bruce, wait!" She shouted. Bruce stopped and turned around, waiting for her to continue "I… can I come with you? I just, I want to see how she is. It's my fault she's in so much pain to begin with."

"Bela," Bruce began calmly "It isn't your fault."

Bela shook her head, smiling dolefully.

"Yes, it is, if I hadn't ended up…"

"You didn't choose to be sent in time, Bela. It was an accident." Bruce told her.

"Yeah but it still made that girl hurt." Bela responded as the two made their way to the Hulk chamber "and who knows how many of the people affected are also hurting, or will be hurt later… because of me."

"Bela, it's okay." Bruce responded as they reached the door of the Hulk chamber.

Bruce carefully opened the door partway, letting in as little light as he could while he and Bela slipped inside.

"Hello?" He asked quietly, looking at the corner of the chamber, where the small girl was huddled, her blonde hair covering her face and her breathing heavy. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Came a timid voice as the girl moved into an upright position. "Yeah, I, uh… sorry for coming here, I wasn't sure where else to go, I"

"It's fine, seriously, are you feeling any better?"

"Yeah, much," She replied, her voice a normal, if slightly quieter than normal, volume "thank you."

Bruce switched a light switch and the lights slowly flickered on, the girl cringed slightly.

"Okay maybe my eyesight is a bit sensitive…" She muttered blinking several times before her eyes finally settled. She looked towards Bruce and Bela, her eyes widening as if only then realizing what she'd actually just done "Uh, I'm, I'm Tara, Tara McNeil."

"I'm so sorry this happened to you, Tara." Bela blurted suddenly. "It's my fault, I'm so sorry…"

"What happened anyway?" Tara asked as she looked at Bela, "How, why, how is it your fault?"

"It's not her fault, she's just blaming herself because she thinks it's her fault" Bruce said, sending a surprisingly stern glance at Bela who smiled sheepishly.

"It is my fau-" Tara cut Bela off

"Why don't you tell me what happened and I can decide if it's your fault or not" Tara said firmly.

"Uh… It's a long story."

"I've got time, my parents don't expect me back till six because I normally have Hockey"

Bruce and Bela told Tara how Bela arrived and what Tony expected had happened as she did.

"Doesn't sound like your fault to me." Tara said, smiling at Bela "It must be hard to be so far away from home."

"Yeah… I haven't really had time to let it sink in yet," Bela said thinking, "I mean, I'm not that far away, I only live a few blocks from here actually… but, things are different here than they are in the future, for one thing for a super genius Tony Stark's Wifi is terrible."

Tara laughed and Bela smiled. A knock sounded at the door.

"Bruce? Bela? They're back" Janet said, sticking her head around the door of the Hulk chamber before smiling at Tara "Nice to see you're okay."

The trio made their way to the door of the quinjet hanger just as the doors opened and out walked Tony, Steve, Natasha and Clint… with a bird hanging tightly onto his scalp.

"Uh… Clint?" Bruce started trying not to laugh at the indignant look on Clint's face.

"Shut it, I know, it followed us back" He replied frowning, sarcastically adding "apparently this is what's giving off the radiation!"

"Right…" Bruce turned to Tony, eyebrow raised in question.

"I uh… may need to tweak the tracking device just a bit… just a minor malfunction…" Tony told him as he walked distractedly towards his lab. He stopped turning to the group, and looking straight at Thor.

"I… this isn't one of your crazy Brother's tricks is it." Tony asked him. Clint looked sick as he tried to look at the bird perched on his head and the bird squawked and looked at Tony as though irritated… no that must have been Bruce's imagination.

"No, friend Tony," Thor told him as he stared at the bird, "My brother prefers Ravens."

"Great, good, now, if you'll all excuse me." And with that Tony made his way to his lab, mumbling under his breath.

"Well, looks like the bird stays." Steve commented, looking at the bird. "I mean, if it doesn't decide to fly away or something"

The bird squawked happily and flew off of Clint's head and onto his shoulder instead, Clint began to pet it absentmindedly.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 3... this took me a while and I'm not too sure why. The next chapter will hopefully be up next week. But I'm going to be very busy this weekend (early Christmas at my Dad's) and if it's not up by then they it will probably be up after the holidays as i'm going to be away and busy with Christmas preparations and revision for my first A level exams in January...

But managed to write a lot yesterday after i finished this one, so hopefully I'll be able to get it done, i have some good ideas for it, and it'll probably be longer than previous chapters...

Katy