"So anyway, apparently I'm the reason that they caught Loki..." Bruce said, his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee that had been made in a billy over the camp fire. They had moved from the camp site as soon as Bruce had fixed Callie's injury up, fearful that the phone call may have been traced. They had travelled twelve hours by bus and were now currently sitting in a camp area just outside of Adelaide.
"He's so modest, is he not?" Callie asked, sitting down next to Bruce with a smile. It had taken her four days to regain her strength and fight the infection enough that she could leave the tent, and she was only just able to eat more then soup. "Where did you learn to cook so well?"
"I like cooking, it's something I can do without fearing the other guy..." Bruce said, smiling proudly as he watched Grace stir the thick stew which was now cooking away over the fire. "I mean, there isn't much in the kitchen that can make me angry..."
"Eggs." Grace said, grinning at the older doctor. "I hate cracking eggs, no matter what I do the yolk either breaks, the shell smashes or it breaks smoothly and then a tiny bit of shell does a suicide jump in to the bowl just to spite me!"
"You think she makes it up, but i've seen it happen. Grace and eggs do not get along!" Callie said, laughing as Grace nodded solemnly before taking her attention back to the stew.
"I don't know, a man that can cook and is a doctor? Why aren't girls swarming over you?"
"GRACE!" Callie snapped, glaring at her friend as Bruce blushed a brilliant shade of red and started to wring his hands in terror.
"What? I'm just saying! I'd pay to have a guy be able to cook, and doctors are sexy!"
"I'm a Physicist, not a doctor... I only know medical training from patching myself up and reading books about it... I came here because I'm the only one that they trusted to help Callie, and because she would probably kill anyone else if she knew they saw her like this." Bruce said, smiling softly as Callie gently put her hands over his to stop them from wringing in nerves.
"And you and Callie...?" Grace asked, watching as Callie's eyes flashed with sadness and Bruce looked away.
"Not any more." Was Callie's soft reply before she took her hands away from the doctor's. "I guess I owe my life to you, again." She added, giving Bruce a smile.
"No, I think this one is Loki's doing, if you were fully human that infection would have killed you days ago."
"That's the second time he's saved my life..." Callie sighed, poking at a beetle with a stick until Bruce flicked the stick away to save the beetle any more annoyance.
"How the hell did you get two hot guys looking after you? I can't even get one hot guy to give me his name!" Grace said, sighing loudly and dramatically before placing her hand on her cheek. "They all complain I'm to much like a guy."
"I wonder why they would say that..." Callie muttered, poking her tongue out at her best friend.
"Huh?" Grace asked, looking up from where she was dealing with the stew once more. "I am nothing like a guy! I... I'm... Fuck!" She groaned as she accidentally burnt herself on the pot.
"Just like a guy." Callie stated, getting up and gathering up the bowls for the stew to be dished in to. "Does it need anything else, Bruce?"
"No." Bruce said, distracted by trying to fix up the burn on Grace's hand, whilst she tried to stop him from fixing it.
"It's only a burn, Bruce! I've had worse!" Grace said, a small blush on her cheeks as the older man held her hand gently and applied burn cream. "Much worse then just a burn..."
"It's already blistering, Grace!" Bruce said in a tone that made Grace shut up and roll her eyes. "You don't like a fuss being made about you, do you?" He asked as he bandaged her hand.
"There are others who need it more then I." Grace said simply, pulling away when Bruce was finished and going to dish the stew up. "If someone starts to fret over me, I have to be tied down." She grinned as she handed him the plate of food. "Though, if it was with someone as cute as you, I might consider it."
"Grace! For god sake I will chuck you in to the bloody river!" Callie snapped, sitting down with her own plate of food.
"Sir, I am sorry, but the attack was alien."
Director Fury looked up from the papers that were strewn over his desk and eyed Clint for a few seconds before speaking, his voice sounding more tired then it had ever sounded before. "Very well, send a team down there to investigate. Keep Maria on monitoring and Natasha can go down to head the investigation. I want hourly reports until we can determine just who the hell did this."
"Yes Director."
As soon as the door closed, Director Fury's eyes traveled back down to the maps and reports on his desk. He was trying to track Bruce and Callie, figuring that they would have met up somewhere along the line. But there were reports of Bruce in Prague a week ago, before he vanished from the face of the Earth once more, though a bus terminal did get a photo of him in Australia.
It was only a very quick glimpse, and some even questioned if it was really him, but Director Fury believed it was and with that belief he had thrown himself head first in to trying to track down his daughter once more. He had even roped in Darcy and Jane's help to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D and track any phenomenons in the weather, and apart from a heart shape flash of lightening on the day that marked a year since Thor had met Jane, there had been nothing.
He knew that as soon as Thor brought the child back, they would find Callie and probably Bruce, but at the same time, he knew just how easily Bruce could fall from the radar. He flicked through a few more pages of writing and froze when the door opened, looking up he came face to face with Maria.
"There has been another attack, it has wiped out a small town in Colorado. Same MO as before, a flock of crows landing around the town and then flying off, three minutes later the town is blown to smithereens with a large wind carrying black feathers. They are still looking for survivors..." Maria said softly, watching as The Director sighed loudly and ran his hands over his face in exhaustion.
"And we are positive it is not Loki?" Director Fury asked, for once actually begging that it was due to the God of Mischief playing around once more.
"No, this is a female." Maria walked in and flicked the TV on, showing a news report on the damage. "She was seen in the middle of the wreckage, searching for a few minutes before vanishing..."
"Did she say anything?"
"No sir, nothing."
"Damn it!"
