AN: Hi! It's me again. I am so, so, so so so so so so so so so so sorry that this story took such a long time to update! Turns out life gets busy (who'd a thunk?)! This was my first fan fiction, and although I thought that I was ready for a multi-chapter fic, I wasn't.

A ginormous thanks to anyone who took time out of their busy life to read this story. You guys are the best! Last thing (and I know that this AN is too long, and no one but me probably reads these, but still): This story is complete. And it's really complete this time. And it has a little bit of an open ending. So, yeah. Here we go.

Disclaimer: I only own my Original Characters. All recognizable characters belong to Marvel.

After waking up in the center at around eight at night, René had walked to the bus station, which was luckily on a few minutes away. She had to wait thirty minutes for a bus to arrive, and her stop was the last one to get off, but it only mildly irritated her. During the wait she went over the events of the day again. Today was a weird day, she decided. A good day, a helpful day, but a weird one none the less.

René figured that, if convenient, she would go to the coffee shop the next day. She had liked the people she met, mostly. Liza seemed kind and witty, although a little too optimistic and naïve at times. Johnny was a mystery, but the good kind. She didn't talk to him much, but she liked what she saw. The same went for Kate, who was seemed kind, René guessed, and Rodney, who seemed like a clever sweetheart, although René figured he was also a neat freak. The only one who René didn't like was Emmett, who was loud, obnoxious, and clingy, in her opinion. Then again, she had been wrong about so many things. Who knew? Maybe Emmett would end up being a good friend at the end of this adventure. Maybe he'd end up being Prince Charming. Maybe he'd read her body language and leave her alone. She wouldn't know until things played out.

And then there was the Doctor. René wasn't quite sure what to think of him. He was smart, and kind, obviously, but there seemed to be a sort of darkness to him, as well. René's cheeks burned at the last thing she said to him, thinking back. "You're an angel," she had said. And the worst thing about it was that she had meant it.

Time flew, as it was prone to do, and the world continued to turn. Life didn't skip a beat, as René quickly learned. She went to the coffee shop, like she promised, and spent an hour more than she had planned to. First Emmett insisted that he would buy her a latté, which took half an hour to get because the coffee shop ran out of the ingredients, so instead they all piled into Emmett and Rodney's cars and drove to the Starbucks next to René's work. René rode shotgun in Emmett's car, with Liza in the backseat.

After getting the cup they all sat around one of the tables outside and just talked about anything and everything. They talked about friends, family, work, relationships, the works, and before she knew it her watch said 6:00 and she had to go. But Rodney, of all, begged her to stay for just one more hour, and said he'd buy dinner for everyone.

And then the next day was Monday, and she spent an hour before work making sure that she looked perfect and confident. She made sure to flash a smile that was supposed to look in-control and confident, but most likely looked absolutely crazy, at Mindy.

In between readjusting to work and trying to maintain in touch with new, equally busy friends, René found herself too swamped with life to even begin to think about the Doctor and wonder where he was now. It was only in the few minutes before she fell asleep at night that she allowed herself to contemplate this.

Answers came less than a year later, in a way that René never would have expected.

It was seven in the morning, and she had to be at work at nine. Normally she would have slept in later, but she had woken up and couldn't get back to sleep. She had made herself a cup of coffee and had sat down on her couch to watch the news.

For her, it seemed like any other day-a random Thursday, but the news was buzzing about something that had happened that day a year ago, something called the Attack on New York, and about the Avengers, whoever they were. René almost changed the channel right then and there, but she stopped when a video began to play on the news.

There was footage of a large battle. It looked like something out of some sort of science fiction movie, but after all she had seen René decided that aliens in New York weren't too farfetched. Suddenly though, René's heart began to beat like a drum inside her chest. She looked on, with a mixture of transfixion and horror as an all too familiar green giant destroyed the intruding aliens around him.

She sat, frozen, even as the camera zoomed to show other heroes. Her body was in revolt against her, but she fought for breathe and came up victorious. She looked at the screen again, and was startled to see that the monster, the giant, was helping. He was saving the day. Her monster was a hero, she realized, startled.

She watched the rest of the video, and figured out that the creature was called the Hulk. It was an appropriate name, she thought. Acting on a whim, she grabbed her computer and looked up the word "Hulk" on google. Suddenly, she froze, her eyes widening and her heart pounding.

The Hulk, otherwise known as Dr. Robert Bruce Banner.

Reviews, as well as constructive criticism, are greatly appreciated. If you see something that is wrong, please let me know.