"You want me to run this sample," Bruce Banner held up a small glass slide with a few flakes of dried blood, "against this one?" And here he held up a second sample, this time a small strip of fabric darkened with a miniscule amount of blood. Holding them both about head level, he fixed Natasha with a confused look. "You do realize I'm not a geneticist, right?"

Natasha stared back flatly, arms crossed and weight shifted to one leg.

Bruce nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips, and turned back to the small lab, lowering the samples. "Yeah, not technically… You do know that SHIELD has their own labs for these, right?" He asked to be conversational, positive that she knew exactly what SHIELD had at their figurative fingertips. There was little she didn't know except for the more complex scientific concepts.

With the scientist working, Natasha allowed herself to relax enough to slip onto a tall stool. "Hill has me tracking down this Spider-Man kid and I'd like to get it over with. The main labs are always a few days behind and I need to be done sooner rather than later."

"Maria Hill has you tracking someone." The scientist didn't look up from his work preparing the two separate samples, but he was interested.

The spy rolled her eyes and drew a knee to her chest. "Yes. Fury told her to look into this guy, for the Initiative I guess, but she turns right around and passes it off to me, as if she expects me to be the new Coulson." The comment came out thoughtlessly, but she flinched as soon as it tumbled out of her mouth.

Even a year's passage hadn't softened that particular loss, and they both fell silent. The sound of glass tinkling as new slides were made and various mechanical sounds of the lab purring into life were the only interruption.

After setting everything for the tests to run in motion, Bruce stepped away from the lab and leaned against a different counter to eye Natasha. "That should be done in a couple of hours." He paused, peering at her, before shaking his head slightly. "Did you say 'kid'?"

Natasha frowned, chewing her lip pensively. "Honestly, they don't want me talking about it until we know for certain, and they certainly want to know first." She debated just letting him know. Bruce Banner was hardly the one to worry about taking advantage of secrets.

"Tony, right?"

He was pretty good at mind reading, though. She sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose at the name. "Pretty much."

Bruce nodded, dropping his gaze before turning to watch the lab equipment. "He'll find out at some point anyway, you realize."

"I know." She huffed a breath, then pulled out a tablet. Without comment, she sorted through files until opening one and sliding the tablet down the counter towards the scientist. "Peter Parker, seventeen year old senior at Midtown Science. I started looking into anyone this Stacy talked to, and I was originally going to just question him as a witness, but things started popping up that looked suspicious. At this point I'm positive it's him, but I still wanted to get those samples checked." She set her jaw. "Clint's getting more information from Oscorp. They only originally gave us access to any video feed that directly dealt with the girl, but this kid disappeared from those screens."

Bruce scrolled through the files, pausing at certain points that caught his attention. He frowned and looked up, brows furrowed. "What is it that makes you think this kid is swinging around New York?"

"He was sending off red flags with his paranoia, but then Stacy showed up and I overheard them talking about promises…" Natasha pointed back at the tablet with a jerk of her chin. "But keep reading. His father was a geneticist that worked with Doctor Connors, and, like I said about the Oscorp security footage, he was seen with a tour group in Oscorp's building a couple of weeks before the whole incident."

The elevator door pinged open, heralding Hawkeye's arrival. He entered with a paper file raised above his head. "This kid ended up visiting the good old Doc at his own home." At the counter he dropped the file theatrically, letting it thwack the surface of the counter as a few sheets slid out of the folder. "Additional security footage has him at the tower multiple times in the week leading up to the incident, plus his first trip there had him accessing a secure room full of, wait for it-" He paused here for effect, then pointed at the file he had delivered. "Room full of mutant spiders."

Natasha rolled her eyes at his grandiose entrance, but she couldn't keep from smiling as well. "It's about time you finished. It's a good thing they asked me to lead, or we'd still be talking to the students."

They looked about to engage in a verbal spar, so Bruce quickly intervened with a wave of a hand to catch their attention. "So you think you've got your guy," he ignored Clint's outburst ("Think? Room of mutant spiders!") "But still, what is SHIELD's interest in children?"

"He's a kid that has the potential to be a threat, SHIELD wants something done." Barton pulled another seat up to the counter and sat next to Natasha. "I think it'd be better to handle it amongst ourselves; we might not know his particular situation, but we'll get it more than any of the plebes will." He shifted his attention to Natasha. "So, what do we do?"

The spy straightened up and pulled the file the blond had assembled toward her. She flicked from page to page (she had to give him credit, it might have taken some time, but it was thorough) and glanced to the nearest clock. "Well, we still have to wait for the results. After that, I'm not sure. He's paranoid and I don't know if he'll run or not."

The pair descended into a dialogue of debate, and Bruce listened to their back and forth before turning away to continue looking through the information Natasha had pulled up on her tablet. They still had far too much time to kill before the results would be readable, so he contented himself with familiarizing himself with the boy.

He had a stellar pedigree in science, and while that normally wouldn't be indicative of anything, being able to go toe-to-toe with a scientist that was leading his field really boosted his credit. After pondering what to do with that realization, he turned his attention back to the two spies' debate of how best to abduct a teenager with superhuman capabilities (and without anyone noticing).

"He's already comfortable in dark alleys, that's hardly the best-"

"He's comfortable beating up thugs in dark alleys; thugs that have no proper experience defending themselves, and we're hardly ill-experienced thugs-"

"I just think we can come up with something better than-"

"Hey, hey…" Bruce cut in, a hand raised to his temple. The pair stopped abruptly and two heads pivoted to stare at him. He stared back for a moment, unnerved, then shrugged. "Offer him an internship here. According to your files he's smart enough for it, and there's no risk of hurting anyone, or scaring him off early…"

For a moment, all that went on was some mutual staring. Finally, Clint looked to Natasha, who reciprocated with a thoughtful glance, then back to Bruce. "Does Tony even take interns?"

"No, but does that really matter?" Bruce waved a hand dismissively. "No, the internship can be with me, but here at the tower. Besides, it's just a front anyway, a way to get to talk to him." He traded looks with each spy. "Right? Just talking?"

There was an awkward chorus of 'of courses' and 'yeahs' that weren't completely encouraging, and Bruce found himself hoping that they wouldn't have to bother the teen, but he nodded before indicating the clock. "Well, you've still got a while. I'll call you when the results are in."

Clint seemed pleased with the order and stood. "Sounds good to me. We telling Fury before or after?"

"After," Natasha said without pause. She stood and reached for her tablet and the files. "Please keep this quiet for now, Bruce." She smiled up at him, then briskly followed Clint out of the lab.

Bruce, for his part, waved them off as they departed then went back to working on the small-scale experiments he had been working on before Natasha's request. SHIELD wanted him to invent some sort of Tesseract-Geiger counter to alert them to any approach of that particular energy signal, and while he knew it was possible, without the Tesseract itself, or that staff of Loki's, it was considerably more difficult.

So difficult, in fact, that he was so absorbed in analyzing some findings less than an hour later that he didn't notice the intruder until he had an arm slung around his shoulders.

"Mind telling me what an STR analysis has to do with extra-terrestrial gamma-ray signals?"

AN/ Once again, thanks for all you positive comments and favorites/follows! I doubt this will be the best out there, but it's certainly encouraging to know that people enjoy it :3