That night, Renee found herself heading towards the Stark Tower training facility in one of the building's subterranean levels. She'd been far too restless to sleep, the botched mission, and her conversation with Maria keeping her mind from resting. Renee knew that simply by talking to her that Maria had forgiven her, and Renee, ever loyal to her friend and Commander, couldn't help but feel indignant that she was angry with her in the first place. Maria knew better than anyone in this galaxy exactly how dedicated Renee was to her mission.

As she approached the main training room, she noticed that one of the lights above the door was illuminated, indicating that the room was occupied. She glanced to her right, and noticed a thin set of steel steps leading to the floor above. At the top of these steps, Renee found herself on an observation deck, with roughly 20x7 feet of windows looking down into the training/simulation room. The Captain was surprised, but not displeased to see Stark and Banner both down in the great white-walled room. Both were "suited-up" as it were, Stark in her impressive Iron Valkyrie suit, and Banner in his "blue Hulk" form. They were standing in the middle of the wide white expanse, talking. Renee was still shocked by the striking calmness of the great blue monster. She'd seen the footage of his father's legacy, but then, she realized, he probably knew that. Come to think of it, he was probably painfully aware of what everyone expected him to be.

The two separated abruptly, Stark's helmet materializing over her head, taking to the air above Banner. Suddenly, the room came to life, different panels in the walls opening to reveal weapons of varying calibers and obstacles of all shapes and sizes. The whole room seemed to converge on Banner, lines of bullets following him as he sprinted around the room, obstacles continuously jumping out in front of him or from below or above him. The whole room seemed to be able to anticipate his every move as he became a blue blur on a white screen. Renee was impressed with his agility, he was fast for his size, but she was still anxious to see his destructive capacity. She knew he had it somewhere in there, he had to.

Erick sprinted around the training room, his "big blue" form, as Terra had referred to it, enabling him to run faster than he'd ever been able to. Erick had never spent too long in his other form at any one time, usually out of fear or uncertainty. However, he was beginning to like this whole "practice session" thing. He'd never realized just how liberating it felt to have no physical limits. He looked at a spot in the simulation room, and his body took him there, regardless of if it was the far corner of the room, or a spot on the wall twenty feet from the ground.

As he sprinted about from one spot to another, he kept his eyes on his surroundings, avoiding streams of bullets and missiles raining down on him from all sides. He glanced over at Terra, hovering in one corner of the training room, watching him go. Suddenly, he found himself sprinting towards her, the machines on the walls following him toward her. Before he could adjust his course, a missile launcher appeared from the wall behind her, threatening to fire its charges at her at point-blank range. Reacting almost on pure instinct, he found himself suddenly running along the wall towards the launcher. Before its targeting mechanism could find him, he leaped from the wall, and with all his strength and the momentum he'd built up, came down on the launcher with a great blue fist, ripping it from the wall, and smashing it into an unrecognizable heap.

Terra flew away from the corner as soon as she saw Erick leaping at her. Using her suit's tracking system to avoid the lines of bullets still being fired at him, she quickly attempted to shut off the training sequence. However, before she could do anything, the room went quiet. She looked back at the corner she'd been hovering in, and saw Erick standing over the crumpled heap of what appeared to be a missile launcher. Upon further examination, she realized that the launcher had come out of the wall right behind her, and that Erick had just saved her life. She berated herself silently as Erick looked up from the wreckage at his feet, a mix of confusion and satisfaction on his face. How could she possibly think for a second that he would have hurt her? He was the son of the Hulk, not the Hulk himself.

"Good to see that side of you exists Banner," they heard over the intercom system. Looking up to the windows of the control room they saw Captain Rogers beaming down at them from behind the controls, "we were beginning to wonder about you."
Renee was beyond relieved, seeing Banner leaping around the room as if it were nothing, crushing that missile launcher like it was paper. She was even more pleased with the way he rushed to the aid of his teammate. Perhaps there was some hope for their team.
"Would you two mind if I joined you? I think now that we know Banner has some fight in him, we could use some team practice."

The bar was packed, and loud. A layer of smoke hovered over everyone's heads, and Bon Scott shrieked over the loud speakers about a highway to hell. Randall sat at the bar, his glass of beer half empty, staring blankly at the shelves of alcohol behind the bar tender. He was roused from his stupor when a loud beeping began erupting from one of the pockets of his worn jeans. He quickly scrambled to locate the source of the sound, which he soon found to be his New Avengers communicator card. He pulled the small card from his back pocket and quickly silenced its incessant beeping, which had drawn the attention of the entire bar. On the card appeared the unsmiling face of Captain Rogers, and from the card he heard what must have been a pre-recorded message,
"Randall, report to Stark Tower training room….please."

Randall snorted at the card, and shoved it back in his pocket, ignoring the rest of whatever Captain Rogers had to say to him. He took up his beer and downed the rest, flagging the bartender down for another. Acknowledging him, the older man, with a mustache reminiscent of old-west bartenders, filled another glass, and handed it to him. After a moment of silence, watching Randal down half the glass in one go, the man asked,
"Say, you aren't one of those Avengers are you?"
Randall chuckled at him,
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
Clearly not affected by the petty insult, the bartender, characteristically wiping down the bar with a rag continued,
"That's some fine work you boys have been doing. My nephew's a cop, just like his dad, my brother. My brother was there thirty years ago, with that first invasion. You guys saved him; same with my nephew today. If it weren't for you guys, they'd both be dead."

The bartender moved away, and Randall was left with his beer and his thoughts. His first instinct was to react skeptically, or to scoff at this man's poorly-told sob story. However, the sincere way with which this man expressed his thanks, the way he'd ignored his cruel response and told his simple, but heartfelt story...
"Damn it." Randall said under his breath as he took a final gulp of his beer, threw some cash on the bar and left.

Renee and Aro watched from the observation deck as Banner and Stark darted about the simulation room, avoiding the drones that had just spawned from the walls. Renee had been pleased to see Aro arrive as she began training with the two in the simulation room now. She'd gotten the idea to have them train in pairs, one ground unit, and one air unit, as a way to get them to work as a team. She had run through with Terra first, and then Aro, and was now running Banner through. She was impressed with the way he and Stark seemed to work in sync, their abilities complementing each other perfectly. Terra made up for whatever Banner lacked in agility, and Banner made up for the strength Terra had sacrificed to be so agile.

She felt good about working with Aro; though he wasn't going to be the first to rush to a team member's aid, he was definitely his father's son. He fought whatever enemy was in range of his sword, in whatever order they came, which, Renee thought, could end up being his undoing, should their enemies try to distract him from the mission at hand. However, during the entire training session, Renee didn't have to worry about an attack from above. As they stood in the observation room, looking down on Banner and Stark, she could sense Aro's relief. She looked over and knew that beneath that stern Asgardian exterior, a young man was rejoicing the imminent return of his family.

Aro stood, arms crossed, in the dark observation room. He stared out the great window, down into the white expanse of their training room, as the son of the Hulk and the Iron Valkyrie worked in sync to defeat their mechanical foes. He had grudgingly left the countryside to return to the Stark Tower, but had been very pleasantly surprised to find why he'd been called back. Perhaps he wouldn't have to take on the forces of the universe alone after all. He was pleased, also, to see the son of the Hulk acting more like his father and less like his human form.

Suddenly, Aro was stirred from his thoughts when he heard footsteps coming up the metal steps to the observation room. Both he and the Captain turned their attention away from the window to see that the Giant man had arrived. Aro afforded him a scowl, and returned his gaze to the training room. It was taking bit of his calmer human nature to control the Asgardian heat rising in his chest. Were it not for that bumbling fool they would be one step closer to saving his family and not stuck here running around in circles.

Randall noticed Aro's glare, and the alcohol clouding his mind only allowed him to feel indignation at the Asgardian's gall. He maintained his gaze as Aro yielded and looked away into the training room. Satisfied with the feeling of dominance that swelled in his chest, he looked to his left and saw Captain Rogers staring at him expectantly. He grinned smugly at her, and walked to look out the observation window. He was surprised to see Big Blue sprinting around the training room destroying drones with ease.
"Well I'll be damned," he murmured. He watched as Banner swatted several drones away like insects, and felt, suddenly, a wave of envy engulf his clouded mind. Suddenly, from beside him, he heard Renee inhale sharply,
"Denning," she said, disgust heavy in her tone, "are you drunk?"
Without answering, Randall abruptly turned and descended the metal stairs. Heedless of Renee's protests, he slapped his palm on the glowing red "Enter" button to the left of the door. However, instead of opening, the mechanism gave a short buzz.
"Denning," Renee said, standing to his right, "you can't go in there while the training program is in-"
To her dismay, in that moment the program ended, the door opening with a short beep. Randall strode in, hastily taking his shirt off, to reveal the dark red suit and Banner both looked surprised to see Randall strutting in.

Were it anyone else in her position, panic would have ensued, but not with Renee. She could not allow a drunk giant loose on her team and the rest of the city. "Randall," she said with as much authority as she could muster, "you need to stop, you've had too much to drink-"
Randall just waved her off, stepping away further into the room as he fumbled with his pants.
"Randall," Stark chimed in, stepping towards him, her helmet dematerializing from over her head. "You can't change now," she tried to sound calm and reasonable, "you could destroy this building, or even step on someone."
"It's fine, it's cool, it's fine," he kept repeating as he kicked off his jeans.
"Randall," Terra noticed that Aro had entered the training room, and Captain Rogers had been closing in behind him, "why don't we-"
Before she could finish, he smacked the button on his suit's belt, and quickly began to grow. With the grace of a sparrow in flight, Terra smoothly avoided Randall's leg as it grew to occupy the space in which she'd been standing. Renee found herself catapulting herself backwards, landing in a crouch, and glaring at the grinning giant that now stood before them.

Terra landed next to Erick, who'd been standing awkwardly in the same spot she'd left him in after their training program ended. She noticed he was staring down at her, and looked up to see a look of concern on his face.
"I'm fine," she answered his unspoken question, then growled "but here in a few seconds, Randall might not be."
Randall had stopped at 20 feet, so that his head was almost touching the ceiling, and stretched his arms out wide, yawning as if he'd just woken up from a long sleep. He looked back down, grinning, and crouched down to address them,
"See? All sober."
"Denning!" Captain Rogers stormed back over to him, "You are the most irresponsible, insufferable ass I have ever had the displeasure of working with!"
"But I'm here ain't I?" he said cutting her off. Renee was silent, though she maintained her steady glare at the smug face above her head.

"And for that I am grateful." They all turned to see Aro standing by the entrance, arms crossed, staring at the giant with a look of forced gratitude.
"Truly," his gaze swept over the rest of the team, his look of gratitude becoming more genuine. Terra could not suppress a smile from spreading across her face, and after a moment of silence, Captain Rogers spoke up,
"Well then, let's get to work."