Everyone went their separate ways after the meeting. Coulson was trying to recruit Thor, Steve had snuck off somewhere, Bruce and Stark were doing science, and Natasha had gone who knows where. This left Cloud with a viable excuse for finally taking a nap. So he had slunk into one of the empty office rooms, set his stuff down, and closed his eyes.

...He didn't even get five minutes. Something was bugging him. He was curious what S.H.I.E.L.D. had even wanted with the Tesseract in the first place. Sure, they had to keep it away from Loki, but Cloud, a supposed Avenger, didn't even know it had existed until he had to investigate the empty S.H.I.E.L.D. base himself. The whole thing was fishy, and fishy things within powerful organizations had never boded well on his world. He was willing to bet it would be the same case on this one.

He wandered down the hallways of the aircraft carrier, wondering where his teammates were supposed to be. It wouldn't be a surprise to anyone that he was having trouble adjusting. The only person he could safely say he got along with was Steve. Bruce was a 'maybe', as was Natasha. Thor was under 'tentative acquaintance'. Stark was 'makes me pissed off only a little less than Rufus'. Cloud just wasn't good with people outside of AVALANCHE. They didn't scare him, they were just… hard to understand. And one of the people here wasn't even human, but one of the old Nibel gods personified. The tech in this world was also strange, almost unnatural. Cloud had only just begun living in a world without mako back home, but they apparently had never had such a thing on this planet. This was both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing: No Shinra. The bad thing: Cloud literally knew almost nothing.

Stuck in his troubled thoughts, Cloud nearly walked into Fury. He only barely stopped himself, but Fury didn't even glance at him, instead storming into the room where Stark and Bruce were working on the staff. Shortly after, Steve followed him in, carrying a gun of some sort and dumping it on the table. The tension seemed to be growing in the room as Steve, Bruce, Stark and Fury began shouting over each other. Cloud pushed open the doors, ready for anything.

"What's going on here?" Cloud asked warily.

Stark tried to dismiss him from the room, but Steve spoke up, gesturing to the weapon laying on the table. "Weapons development, that's what going on." He glared at Fury, mouth set in a deep frown. "S.H.I.E.L.D. was using the Tesseract as an energy source for weapons development."

Cloud sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He slid his gaze to Fury. "I suspected as much," He said dryly.

Fury was frowning, one visible eye furrowed. "Did you?"

Cloud crossed his arms. "...In my world, Shinra did something similar." He paused. "It never turns out well." He turned to exit, only to see Natasha and Thor enter, most likely to see what the commotion was about. Instead of leaving, he turned back to Fury to offer some more advice he was sure wouldn't be heeded, given the track record of organizations like this. "I would suggest you stop before it's too late."

Fury's lips were a tight line. He spun on his heel, coat flying behind him, but Steve blocked his path. The Director stared down at him unhappily, but made no more moves to leave.

"I was wrong Director," Steve said gruffly, if a little disappointedly, "The world hasn't changed a bit."

Natasha strode forward, and for the first time since coming into the room Cloud noticed Bruce was sweating an awful lot. "Fury, Loki's ploy is to use The Hulk." she said, before turning to Bruce, "You wanna think about removing yourself from the situation, doctor?"

Bruce was clearly strained, but he kept a smile on nonetheless. "I was in Calcutta-That's pretty far removed."

Natasha bore her eyes into Bruce intensely. "Loki is manipulating you."

"And, you're doing what, exactly?" Bruce sarcastically replied.

Natasha crossed her arms. "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you-"

"Yes, well, I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy-" Bruce walked over to the monitor, gesturing at the display with a pen, "What I'd like to know is why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons- "

"Isn't it obvious?" Cloud interrupted, "They're building weapons to fight off threats from outer space…" He glanced at Fury, "Or at least, that's what they're going to claim. I'm guessing they're stockpiling them to use against other humans when all of the alien threats are gone. That's what Shinra did." Invisible threat, money allocated weapons, weapons built, oppressive regime. It was like a cycle of evil.

Fury was quiet.

"So what?!" Cloud asked the room, frustrated by their silence, "Am I right?"

Everyone looked at Fury. The Director remained calm and steely, meeting Cloud's disappointed gaze.

"Mostly," he finally conceded. "We're not just stockpiling them for threats and other humans. The fact of the matter is," he paused, drawing the room's attention to Thor and Cloud, "that there are threats that need to be dealt with in order to protect humanity. It could be gods, or super soldiers from another world, or even men like you, Stark."

Stark put his hands on his hips. "Like me?"

"Men who have money, power, and technology, and use it. Who build suits, and become superior to the rest of us. Who can not and will not be restrained by the laws of any governments . These kinds of men, who seem to be cropping up left and right, are threats that will have to be dealt with. And that is why we need these weapons."

"Sounds like a load of shit to me," Cloud grunted, hand going to the hilt of Tsurugi. "But if anything goes wrong on this planet... " His eyes roved around the room, carefully studying the faces of all inside. "You're going to be the ones to clean it up."

By the time Steve thought to yell, "Cloud, wait!" he had already pushed past Thor to the exit. I'm done with this place. He'd dealt with enough bullshit to last him a lifetime. This is going to be Sephiroth all over again.

"Strife," Fury said calmly. Cloud only barely slowed down his pace. "Strife!" Fury called sternly. Cloud stopped.

"What?" He growled.

"If you leave my sight, I will be forced to call all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the vicinity." He glanced towards the weapon on the table. "And I'm sure you'd know how that would go."

Cloud gripped Tsurugi a little tighter. "Try me."

"Do you really want the full might of an army against you right now?"

Cloud grit his teeth. This situation brought up bad memories. His other hand clenched by his side. He could probably make it out. Then again, that was what Zack had thought- Stop.

"Fine."

Cloud stormed back into the room. He refused to look Fury in the eye.

Taking advantage of the momentary silence, Thor walked towards the Director, muscles flexing in irritation. "The truth that remains is that because you used the Tesseract you signaled to all other life forms that you are now ready for a higher form of war-"

Fury met his eyes evenly. "We've developed these weapons as a deterrent-"

"Ah yes, because that's always worked so well-" Stark added sarcastically.

Steve stared down at Stark. "I'm sure if you were still in weapons development you'd be neck-deep in this-"

"Wait, so this is about me now?"

"Isn't it always-"

"I thought humans were more evolved than this-"

"Well humans didn't come to your planet and start blowing up towns-"

"Are you boys seriously that naive? S.H.I.E.L.D. is the one that protects-"

Despite himself, Cloud threw fuel on the fire. "S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn't done anything but drag most of us away from home to be used and thrown away-"

"That may be true for you, Strife, but some of us have a job to do-"

"No, Romanoff, let him speak-"

"Control yourself, Banner, or we may have to-"

"Your versión of control has done nothing but cause chaos!" Thor barked at Fury. Bruce glared between them.

"Well, that's our MO isn't it? What are we, a team? No, we're just a chemical concoction, brought together to make chaos. We're a time bomb." Bruce raised his arms pleadingly, exhausted and exasperated. "Aren't we?!"

"Banner, I think you ought to calm down." Fury advised coldly.

Cloud glared at him, pushing in front of Bruce. "No, I agree with him. The Avengers were a bad idea. I don't believe any good will come of this… This team was nothing but a fever dream, and nobody can seem get their head out of their ass long enough to acknowledge that."

"Well nobody asked you, Broody and Gloomy-"

"Just shut up, Tony-"

"When did I give you permission to use my first name? I'm gonna have to sue you for that-"

Steve, apparently fed up, shoved Stark roughly. "You? You're a big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

Stark kept his footing and narrowed his eyes. "Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist."

Steve clenched his fist. "I knew guys with none of that worth ten of you." A pregnant pause filled the air. "And I've seen the footage. The only one you really fight for is yourself ."

Stark remained silent. Steve continued on his tirade. Cloud made a note to remind himself to never get Steve angry. "You've never laid down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

Stark met Steve's gaze, the air so tense between them that a fight was sure to break out. Stark finally responded, "I think I would just cut the wire."

Cloud felt himself get frustrated on Steve's behalf. They had both been military, and they both knew what it meant to have someone throw their life away for you. But at the same time, Stark had a point. Out-of-the-box thinking had saved countless lives. But there often wasn't any other way. Zack's stories about the Wutai War proved that true. The traps laid had been vicious and quick, never leaving much room for much else besides basic self preservation and instinct.

Steve had a sour smile on his face. "Always a way out…" He glanced to Bruce. He didn't meet his gaze. He turned back to Stark, telling him plainly, "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

The room was quiet. Stark was staring steadily at Steve. "A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers, everything special about you came out of a bottle."

Cloud didn't want to listen to the miserable argument any longer. "Enough!" he shouted, coming between them. When Steve made a move behind him Cloud's hand grabbed the hilt of Tsurugi. He backed off.

Stark glared at him. "And you. Who do you think you are? Coming in here and trying to dictate how things are run? Go back to your world, blondie. Earth doesn't matter to you. You don't belong here."

Cloud glared right back. "You think I don't know that? You think I don't know I'm not really part of the group? I know everyone here is waiting for me to run off like a coward." He glanced around the room. "Don't worry, I'm not mad. It makes sense. I've been a coward before, for a lot longer than any of you will ever know. But I'm not anymore, and I'm tired of running away."

He turned to Fury. "I'm not going to leave. I'll help you protect Earth for as long as I'm here. But after that, I'm going to go home. And it's not because I'm running. I've got things to protect there that are more important to me than anything could ever be on this planet. My world just got off the brink of destruction. It's time for it to rebuild… And I plan to be there for it."

Thor stepped forward as Cloud turned away from Stark. He nodded towards Cloud, and began to pace once again. "The threats to Earth will not stop with the Chitauri." he finally said, "Many more will keep coming. Some may even be on par with JENOVA."

Cloud shook his head. "That's not my problem."

The room was silent once more, before a ding! signalled from the computer. Stark went over, rapidly typing his keyboard to find something Cloud didn't know. Bruce went over to another monitor, copying him.

"Guy-" he started, but an explosion rocked the ship.

"What was-?"

Cloud was cut off as a giant fireball erupted in the center of the room. Before he knew what was happening his vision turned sideways and suddenly there wasn't a floor under him. With a pained grunt he fell next to Bruce and Natasha onto a steel platform. Rubble was catching pieces of his uniform, but pained groans beside him alerted him that somebody had it worse. His ears rang horribly. His vision was dark, traces of color swimming in front of him. He pushed himself up worriedly.

"B-Bruce?" He murmured, "Natasha?"

Somebody was calling his name, from far, far away. "A-Aerith?" He asked hopefully. No response.

"Cloud! Cloud! Wake up, Bruce is- he's-"

His vision slowly began to fade back to normal. Cloud shook his head, once, twice, and wiped the mako-tinged blood off of his forehead. "W-What's going on?" He asked confusedly.

"The Hulk!"

And Cloud was once again sent flying as a giant green fist smashed into him. There goes my ribs.

"Shit!" He heard Natasha breath under her breath. "Bruce- Bruce-" She whispered to the purple blob of color that was presumably Bruce, "Bruce, I swear I'm going to save you. I swear on my life-"

"Your life?" The voice that was not Bruce's snarled. The purple blob began to tremble, growing and morphing into something green and, most importantly, huge.

Cloud scrambled to his feet, but he knew he wouldn't be quick enough to reach Natasha in time. Yelling would only make the Hulk come out faster. His vision swam in and out and the painful burn in his torso was enough to alert him that the mako was doing its job. What to do, what to do- Of course!

"Haste." Cloud muttered. Natasha's actions sped up, much to her surprise, and she was able to squirm out from under the lead pipe crushing her leg in record time. Bruce appeared to be barely restraining himself beside her. Cloud cast Regen followed by Cure2. The pleasant buzz from the Cure2 helped clear his head while the Regen sped along the mako. Barrier won't do any good… the Hulk's physical attacks are all too dangerous for it to have much of an effect…

Bruce's transformation was now complete, his skin green, muscles massive, and shirt completely torn off. Natasha was still up on the steel platform while he and the Hulk were on the floor underneath that. Cloud hardly dared breath as the Hulk stumbled past him, watching intently as the creature seemed to be trying to clear his/its head. The Hulk thoughtlessly crushed a metal tank and Cloud winced in thought of what his ribs must have looked like.

Natasha carefully lowered herself down from the steel platform, but the sound she made when she dropped was still loud enough that the Hulk spun around and charged. Natashe turned and ran, but with a noticeable limp slowing her steps considerably. Cloud cast a Cure3 on Natasha, and prayed to Gaia she would be able to make it. The Hulk practically foamed at the mouth, and Cloud felt fear for the first time in a long time as it ran past him, straight towards her. Cloud picked himself up and crept behind them. He felt bad leaving her to fend for herself, but if this plan was going to work, he would need stealth as his ally. He wouldn't use his sword (he didn't want to kill Bruce), so magic would have to do. The sword was for if things got ugly.

He followed The Hulk at a distance as it roared at Natasha. She was fast, and despite Hulk's considerable speed, she always stayed one step ahead. She was well trained. Finally Natasha came to a dead end, and despite her brave face Cloud knew she was probably scared. Bullets had proved ineffective against The Hulk, and close-quarters combat would be more dangerous than any other course of action.

"Stop!" Cloud cast. The Hulk froze in place. Cloud confidently slipped out from his hiding place. If he could at least get it's attention it would be better than nothing. Natasha, wide-eyed, mouthed at him, "What-the-fuck-are-you-doing?"

"So are you really the best monster this world has to offer?"

The Hulk growled from somewhere deep in its throat. Cloud refused to let his unease show.

"I've fought Hedgehog Pies scarier than you."

The Hulk shattered the spell. Cloud felt bad doing this to Bruce, but he still cast Bio2 and Demi2 on the beast. The Hulk was simultaneously poisoned and flattened against the floor. Cloud spared only a second to look at Natasha, but she was already running past him, back to the deck. On her way past she clipped him on the shoulder, but Cloud knew it was a 'thank you'. They didn't have time to waste words, as The Hulk was already rising, and if possible he seemed even more enraged than before.

Cloud hurriedly cast Sleep, but as expected, The Hulk was immune. So he ran. He ran faster than the last time he had seen a Tonberry, because the green creature behind him was only a smidgen more terrifying than those horrible things.

To block the way, he cast a quick Ice3. It only stopped The Hulk for nothing less than a microsecond. Time for the last resort. He prayed to Aerith for help before casting Mini.

...It worked. The gigantic, enormous, incredible Hulk was now no larger than his pinky finger. Of course, there was no telling when the Hulk would shake off the spell, so while he was at it, Cloud hit it with a Bolt3 and a couple Fire3s. That seemed to do the trick, and the little mini-Hulk was out like a light in the palm of his hand.

He clenched his fist around the miniature beast and went to go find Natasha.