First of all, sorry for the short chapter. I've had a terrible cough and the free time I've had has been used doing make-up work for school. This chapter is a bit of a filler, to move the story a long, and I tried to incorporate some humor. Alright, I hope you guys enjoy and thank you for reading :)

Exactly 3 months until the Age of Ultron! Almost there!

I don't own Marvel anything.

Clint, carrying Natasha once again, was rushed into the elevator and taken down to the medical floor along with Bruce. Steve put his shoulder to the wall and sighed. The wall was the only thing stable. Everything else was spinning around him.

It was the mission he assigned, with the enemy he had been fighting. He had let Bucky go only to be captured again. She was the one to get hurt. It had always been his duty to make sure no one on his team got injured. Not on the Howling Commandos, not with this group of dysfunctional superheroes. Bucky was his first real loss in the war. He didn't want Natasha to be his second.

"Cap?" a voice said.

Steve jumped away from his thoughts to see Clint walking towards him. Red was all over his hands. Red, everywhere, in every crevasse in-between his knuckles, covering his palms. Her blood.

"How is she?" he asked with a cracking voice. He had never liked waiting for information, especially about one's health.

As a child, he had spent countless hours in a run-down "doctor's office", waiting to see if his next disease would be the end of him or not.

"She's going to be okay," Clint said with a smile. Steve returned the gesture, his white teeth sparkling. "It's a bit of a deep wound, but Bruce stitched her up and didn't see any other injuries. You guys have got to stop getting hurt, or we may have to start paying Bruce," he said jokingly.

"Yeah. Thanks, Clint," Steve said. Although he barely knew the man, Natasha trusted him, and Steve had seen him in action. He had already decided to trust Clint. Tony, not so much.

"Go get changed. You're all dirty," Clint said mockingly.

"And you aren't?" Steve shot back, a grin on his face. Clint kept walking, grabbing some water from the fridge as Steve made his way up to his room.

There, he took off his uniform, which was blackened all around and smelled like metal, and put it down the laundry chute. The chute was specifically for their uniforms and led into a high-powered washer that could get out the toughest stains.

For Tony being the messy person that Steve had observed, he was surprised that he had been able to build something that was meant for cleaning.

After he was done with his shower, Steve toweled off his hair and threw on some comfy clothes before heading back to the communal floor. His muscles ached, but he was not tired. Sleep would only bring memories of Bucky. And he really didn't feel like reminiscing on the past.

He could have sworn, however, that his mind was playing tricks on him when he saw Natasha on the couch, laughing at a movie Tony had picked out. A large white bandage covered her forehead and her scarlet hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

"I've never seen Red this happy," Tony observed as she giggled at another crummy joke.

"Don't get used to it. Banner gave her some stuff for the pain. Should wear off in an hour or so," Clint replied.

Steve took the remaining seat on the couch, next to the smirking assassin. "Hi, handsome," she cooed, looking over at him. Her eyes were glassy and her skin slightly pale, but other than that and the unusually wide smile on her face, she seemed fine.

"Um, hi, Tasha," Steve replied awkwardly.

"Lady Natasha. She has a smile on her face. It is a pleasant surprise," Thor said from the other end of the room.

"Sh, I like this part," Natasha replied, wagging a finger in his direction before bursting out laughing. Even Tony looked surprised.

"Bruce, what kinds of meds did you give her?" Tony whispered to Bruce, who was sitting next to him.

"Some of the stronger ones because I did some head work. I didn't think that it would be this bad, though," he said, scratching his head. But he was enjoying it too, as a smile crossed his fact whenever Natasha's face lit up.

"Whoops!" she yelled as she began to slide off the couch, stopping her fall with her hands. Steve bent down to help her up, lifting her hands off the ground and placing her head back on the couch. "Much obliged, Captain," she laughed.

Steve couldn't decide whether to be happy or confused. It was so unlike her. "No problem," was what he replied with.

By the time the movie had ended, the meds had mostly worn off, taking Natasha's good mood with them. She sat on the couch with an ice pack on her bandaged forehead.

"Who the hell did this to me?" she asked in a slightly slurred, sleepy voice.

Everyone else went silent and looked to Steve for the answer. "HYDRA caught Bucky again and brainwashed him," he replied simply.

"Oh, great," Natasha said, throwing her free hand up in the air. "It's like he's got a death wish for me. First my shoulder, now this. What the hell does HYDRA want with me?"

"Not that I'm complaining, I like not being a punching bag, but why come after Red?" Tony asked.

"Stop calling me that," she hissed as Tony shrugged.

"I have no idea. Maybe the answer is in whatever is inside those boxes. Have you looked at them yet, Bruce?" Steve asked.

"I came up here to keep an eye on Natasha after stitching her up, so no."

"Alright. No more suspense. Let's go," Tony said, getting up from the couch. Everyone followed except Natasha, who was quite content laying on the cushions.

In the corner of Bruce's lab sat the two boxes that Thor had carried out of the weapons factory, still glowing blue. Tony was standing behind everyone else as Bruce gingerly picked up one of the boxes and set it on the table. As he opened it, the men crowded around.

"What is it?" Tony asked, perched on the balls of his feet to see over the towering super-soldier. "Will it explode?"

Steve picked up a gun from the box, exactly like the ones they had seen laying around the factory before it had exploded. However, the gun was not glowing. Bruce helped Steve remove the rest of the guns from the box before stopping at the bottom.

There was a fine layer of packing fiber at the bottom, glowing blue vials resting in it, about ten in all. Steve picked one up, the glass tube smooth in his hands.

"Are we supposed to pretend to know what this is?" Clint questioned, also picking up a vial.

"Nope," Tony replied, also taking a tube.

"Okay, everyone set the tubes down," Bruce ordered, agitated that everyone was touching potentially dangerous enemy weaponry. "Back in the box. I can conduct experiments and should be able to tell you by the end of the day."

"Do you have any ideas about what it could be?" Steve asked. Bruce shook his head no. "Thor, it emits light that is almost like the light from the tesseract. Any connection?" He knew it was a long shot, but they had to cover all of the possible options.

"No. None can transform the tesseract. This, liquid, does not possess its' power," Thor concluded easily.

They were all quiet for a moment. "Back upstairs. I have another movie!" Tony announced suddenly. Steve groaned, but followed them back up anyways. Bruce needed time to work.

They found Natasha where they left her, her eyes only slightly more closed. "How you feeling?" Steve asked, sitting down gingerly beside her.

"Fine. Just a headache," she murmured. Not knowing what else to do, Steve wrapped his arm around her so his hand could lie on top of the couch. She crept closer to him and sighed, placing her head on his chest.

"I have been thinking," Thor's voice boomed. "We are a fighting force to be reckoned with, are we not?" Every head nodded. "But we do not have a name. We have nothing that shall make our enemies tremble in fear whenever someone says the word."

"I second that idea," Tony replied, pointing towards Thor.

"But what kind of a name do you give a group of dysfunctional superheroes?" Clint asked sarcastically.

"The fearsome six!" Tony yelled, hopping up with his idea. Steve shot him a glare. A name would make things easier, but it had to be a good one. Not a name that enemies would make fun of them for. "No?" he asked, seeing everyone else's disapproval.

"The soldiers," Clint tried.

"No. Too vague. And we are not soldiers," Steve replied.

"Then what are we, Lord Steven?" Thor questioned.

"Protectors of freedom, bad guy crushers, whatever you want to call us. But not soldiers. We are not in a war. But I'm fighting every day to avenge those that died in it."

Something clicked in Tony's mind. "Say that again," he ordered.

"Excuse me?" Steve asked, confused.

"Say that, avenging, whatever. Say it again."

"I'm fighting every day to avenge those that died in it?" Steve said.

"Bingo." A smile was spread from ear to ear.

"What is it, Stark?" Clint asked.

"We have a name. The Avengers," Tony finished, beaming at his great idea.

Everyone was silent, thinking over the name in their heads. One by one, they all started nodding. "That name is one of great power. I would be honored to be called an Avenger."

"Fine with me," Clint said.

Steve nodded in approval.

"Whatever you want, Stark," Natasha mumbled.

As if on queue, Bruce burst into the room, breathing heavily.

"Bruce! We have a team name! What do you think of, The Avengers?" Tony asked, making a grand gesture with his hands.

"Great, great, but we have more things to worry about," he said, removing his glasses to clean them, a habit he had when he got stressed. "The liquid inside the tubes. It's a variant of Steve's formula. It can be readily used to make more super-soldiers."

Steve slipped his arm out from under Natasha and stood up from the couch. "So you're saying that HYDRA now has the means to make an army of super-soldiers?" he asked, his tone worried.

"If they have any source of vita-rays, which I suspect they do, then yes," Bruce replied. "And by the looks of things, they also have plenty of weapons. The makings of a good army. All they need is a place to train them."

"Looks like the Avengers have their first mission," Tony said, smirking.

"Not today, please," Natasha muttered from the couch, half-asleep.

"What do they want with her?" Clint asked, walking towards Bruce.

"No idea."

"Whatever they want," Steve started, "we can assume it won't be good."