Bruce is unsurprised when Fury's cell phone rings even though it hasn't had a charge in months. He can hear it in his hut as he walks back from the river with a bucket of water. He makes no effort to move faster to catch the call and in fact stops briefly to fiddle with his wristband. He is similarly nonplussed when he finds a field agent waiting on him in his cramped little room, her crisp black suit juxtaposed in the fading light against thick, untamed jungle. She insists that she is merely there to escort him back and apologizes that he was not informed sooner. Bruce wonders if he could see the fear in her eyes if she was facing him as she spoke, but Bruce goes with the agent without a fight. He can't help but be a little pleased that they thought him stable enough to send someone other than Natasha to collect him even though he suspects that the jungle is populated with a small army.

He can't help but feel uneasy on the plane though, knowing he can't get out now that he's in. His eyes dart around to the agents that surround him, watching him.

He spots agent Hill and breathes a sigh of relief at the familiar face.
"I keep thinking if I go far enough it will be too expensive to retrieve me. I guess not, huh? My apologies, Ms. Hill; I hope I didn't buck your schedule too much." He gives her a nervous smile.

"Not particularly, Dr. Banner. In fact, we're ahead of schedule. When you didn't answer your phone we did worry that it would be difficult to locate you." She smiles back.

"Well, let's cut to the chase, I can read the briefing, but you might as well just tell me, what needs to be smashed? I haven't really had access to world news as of late." He is fairly causal about the whole thing. He hopes that the pattern will continue and that as long as he cooperates they won't try to detain him when the "mission" is over. Why should they if he comes when they call? As long as they don't try to exert too much pressure it will be easy to collar the Hulk. As long as they let him go back and lick his wounds-

"This is why I'd hoped you would pick up your phone." Hill says pulling Bruce out of his thoughts.

"We've actually got a pretty severe outbreak of a deadly new pathogen. It has been described as being akin to an aggressively mutated rabies strain. We have reason to believe that the Chitauri were carriers. We do not want to cause any further panic by allowing this to fester until the public puts two and two together so it is imperative that the pathogen is contained and nullified as soon as possible. We have Stark of course, but this is really more your area of expertise, so we called you in." she says and there is just the slightest hint of a smile at the edge of her lips.

"Oh" Is all Bruce can manage right away. He is relieved and disappointed all at once. If it were a situation that called for the Hulk he would likely be able to return to his work more quickly, and the less time Bruce spends visible, the better; out of sight out of mind and all that. The only bright side is that he'll have a chance to review the data Tony has hopefully been keeping for him.

Even though it's been months, he isn't sure how Tony will react since the last time they met they had argued. Bruce hopes his notes will have smoothed things over, though he isn't quite sure why he would even bother or why he feels it is so important.

Please, if you're out there and you'd have any opinions on this, I'd love to hear them. This is the longest work of fiction I've written in a long time and I worry that I've allowed myself to become rusty.