Disclaimer: I don't own anything Marvel. I only own Alyss and Dante(who's kind of a douche)

4 days later, Fury returned back to the Helicarrier. With him he had several agents and metallic boxes, which they hid away very quickly. Seeing as the director was nursing a wound, I figured that mine and Dante's answer could wait until it was asked for.

The days had gone by smoothly for us; we managed to stay out of trouble. We had small physical tests and blood samples be taken. Some of the agents loaned or gave us clothes, seeing as there wasn't a store in the middle of the ocean. We were given 3 meals a day and shown the training room (Dante particularly enjoyed that one). The pretty agent Dante had been talking too had even found time to teach us how to use the ship's computers. While all of this was fine and dandy, I more often than not could be found in my new room in the soft covers of my bed.

I don't know why, but the realness of the situation had hit me all at once. No more owing or borrowing money. No more running from bosses or fighting enemies. No more fires…

Fire. It scares me. While it's the one thing that reunited Dante and I, it's also what incinerated those people who held me captive. I couldn't differentiate the smell of burning upholstery from burning flesh. And their screams…

The door opened and I hid my head away from the sudden influx of light from the hallway. I could hear Date sigh and flick on the overhead light. I groaned.

"Stop being a vampire. You've been cramped in here for way too long."

"I came out for testing," I muttered and shoved my face deeper into my pillows.

"Yeah, but then you crawl back in here. Is there something wrong, why you are being so… Pathetic?"

I rolled over and winced at his form. He was in a pair of loose pants and a black wife beater, and judging by the sweat still beaded on his forehead, he had been training. He was holding a brown clipboard.

"Shut up. What do you want?"

Dante gave a small smile. "Well, while you've been moping around, I've been finding some things out. Like how we're getting new visitors tomorrow. Famous ones."

"Lovely," I said simply before slipping out of bed and towards my bathroom.

"You could at least pretend to be excited," he sighed. "Well, there's more. They gave me the results of our blood tests."

"You don't have some nasty STD, right?" I asked through a mouthful of toothpaste.

He chuckled lightly. "Oh no, but there is something interesting that they showed me. Apparently they attempted to track down our ethnicity in order to get closer to finding our origin, but, the results were inconclusive."

I stuck my head out the door at him and raised an eyebrow at him. He smiled back cheekily.

"The doctors were really scratching their head at that one."

I rolled my eyes, "I don't understand how you find that amusing. Having people walk up to you rambling in Spanish isn't the most comfortable thing in the world."

"You've been claiming to be Hispanic? I've been telling people we're Polynesian."

I washed my mouth out with water. "Polynesians don't have green eyes."

"Neither do Hispanics, unless they're really pale."

"Is that all you wanted?" I walked out of the bathroom and lay back down on my bed.

"I just want you to actually get up tomorrow and meet them. Natasha will be there too. Why is it that I'm doing all the work when you were the one who was all gung-ho about this crap in the beginning?" Dante headed back towards the door of my room.

"I'm a female, we function oddly."

"Whatever, I'm coming back tomorrow at 8, you better be up. And would you eat something for goodness sake? You're not that fat."

He managed to close the door right as the clock hit where his head should've been.

I woke up bright and early the next morning and forced myself into the shower, where I then attempted to brush all of the knots that had gathered in my hair. When I got out, I went through my small collection of clothes and decided that a white button down blouse, which was about a size too large, and my reliable old jeans would be sufficient. There was no way I was going to wear those awful SHIELD uniform pants, way too dramatic, though I will consider their pencil skirts when I have something other than my boots to wear.

I could hear Dante's rhythmic footfalls coming down the hall. I could always tell when it was him, he walked like he dancing to a song.

I continued to brush my now dry and straightened hair as he let himself in. I skimmed his appearance and had to stifle a laugh. Many of the men here didn't have his broad shoulders, so he was forced to wear a t-shirt with some pizza brand blazing across the front that still restricted his arms a bit. He wore a pair of black slacks and his expensive black puma shoes that I bought him last year. His eyes rolled at me.

"Wanna trade shirts?" he offered.

I shook my head and set down the hairbrush. Dante noticed my hair and smiled.

"Wow, I can't remember the last time I saw it like that. You really want to impress some people huh?"

I pulled on my new socks and laughed. "You were the one who said we were getting some "famous" visitors. Thought I'd make a good first impression," I looked at his shirt again and scoffed. "Who are they, anyway?"

"Captain America and the Hulk."

I rolled my eyes at him.

"Ha-ha. Really though, who are they?"

Dante smiled cheekily. "I'm serious. They found Captain America frozen in a block of ice awhile back and he woke up. And they found the Hulk hiding out in India somewhere. Apparently they're not using him for fighting though, they need him to research some crap."

My jaw dropped and I stared up at him. He wasn't lying, that's for sure.

He tossed my boots at me and I caught them, snapping my jaw shut.

"Come on now, they'll be here in a while and the ship will be taking off in about 30 minutes. Now would be a good time to find Fury, don't you think?"

I nodded and laced my boots up.

We walked out onto the bridge, where the agents were scurrying around as usual. Fury stood behind two large screen computers, speaking to Agent Hill who noticed us first. Fury must have noticed her gaze and turned to look at us. Dante stepped ahead of me. 'He must still not like him much.'

"Well?" was all Fury said.

Dante nodded and Fury gave a small smile.

"Welcome to SHIELD then kids, take a seat."

He jerked his head towards the glass table with leather chairs surrounding it. I smiled at Dante and we sat down. Dante sighed and watched the agents. I looked out the window and noticed a jet come by, landing on the carrier no doubt. I began to steal glances at the door and at the guards. Fury began to initiate take off and still no one came through the doors. I grew a bit apprehensive and Dante sensed it. He placed a hand over my mine and muttered something under his breath. I could feel him exerting his power of suggestion over me and I grew calm. We heard the doors open and spun to face it.

Natasha walked in ahead of a tall blonde man who looked around the room in wonder and a black haired man in a brown suit. He didn't seem as impressed as the blonde man. They must be Captain America and the Hulk's… host? If that's what he would be called. Natasha walked right over to Fury and Captain America and the "host" separated and looked around the room. Captain America smiled as he looked around and I noticed the Hulk's host looking slightly annoyed at the guards, who kept their eyes trained on him.

"-Let's vanish." I caught Fury saying and I turned to face him.

Fury turned around and advanced towards the men.

"Gentlemen," he acknowledged. Captain America drifted past him, handing him a ten dollar bill while still looking around. Fury smirked and set the bill in his pocket. He then walked over to the host.

"Doctor, thank you for coming." He said, extending his hand out.

So this guy was a doctor too?

"Thanks for asking nicely," the doctor said hesitantly. "So, uh, how long am I staying?"

"Until we get our hands on the Tesseract,"

I looked over at Dante and he mouthed "I'll fill you in later". He really caught up on his reading, it seemed.

The doctor nodded absently. "Where are you with that?"

They began to speak about spectrometers and other sciency-stuff, so I turned to Dante.

"That whole filling in thing would be nice about now." I said.

"The Tesseract is a cube of unharnessed energy that emits gamma rays. Captain America over there risked his life to contain it; hence him turning into a human Popsicle and the doctor is an expert in gamma radiation, considering that was how the Hulk was created. Some strange guy from another dimension stole the cube though, along with a few agents and a doctor. So now they're trying to find them."

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"You would've known this if you hadn't locked yourself in your room. By the way, did you eat yet?"

Natasha and the doctor walked by us and stopped. She motioned over at us.

"This is Alyssandra and Dante, think of them as special recruits. They're new here too," she turned to us. "This is Dr. Bruce Banner; I'm sure you know of his achievements."

"-if you could call them that." Bruce muttered.

I stood and extended my hand.

"You can just call me Alyss," I smiled at him as warmly as possible. "I look forward to possibly working with you."

He smiled half-heartedly back and shook my hand before turning to Dante, who stood and shook his hand silently.

"Follow me. You're going to love it, Doc, we have all the toys." Natasha said as she walked off, Bruce close behind her.

I turned to glare at Dante but was only met with his own.

"Really? You couldn't have been less rude." I said.

He opened his mouth to argue but an agent and Captain America strode over to us next. Dante stood up immediately and I followed suit, still annoyed by his prior behavior.

He extended his hand out to Captain America first, introducing himself and praising the man. I rolled my eyes and turned to the agent, extending my own hand.

"I'm Alyss; I haven't seen you around before."

The agent laughed. "Director Fury has been assigning me to long term missions lately. Agent Phil Coulson, nice to meet you Alyss."

He shook my hand and Captain America moved on to me.

"I'm sorry about my brother," I began, extending my hand out to him. "He used to beat up the kids who tried to change the station from The Captain America cartoon at the orphanage. You're one of his idols. I'm Alyss." I ignored the glare Dante threw at me.

"Captain Steve Rogers, it's nice to meet you ma'am." He shook my hand gently, as if scared he would break it. "And, um, orphanage?"

"We'll have plenty of time to get to know each other Steve." I said, grinning at him.

"Or not." I heard Fury cut in.

"He's in Stuttgart, Germany. He's not exactly hiding." One of the agents said.

We all turned to Fury, who looked directly at Steve.

"Captain, you're up."

Steve nodded and he and Phil left the room.

"Director Fury," Dante said, walking over to him. "I would like to go as well."

"Me too!" I declared.

Dante whipped around, "No."

"Excuse me?"

I was hurt by his immediate denial.

"I almost lost you last time. I don't think I can protect you this time, especially not against this Loki guy. Besides, you're behind on tests."

"I can fend for myself you know. And we aren't going to even discuss how many times I've saved your ass too!"

Dante gripped my shoulder and looked back at Fury.

"Dante, you may go." He said and then turned back to his screens.

"WHAT?!" I was beyond pissed at this point.

Fury didn't bother to turn around. "Your brother is right; you haven't caught up on your tests. And so long as one of you is here, I know that the other won't leave without our notice."

I made a noise that could only be described as a hiss and a lab coat clad agent approached me. I walked away from my brother and Fury, furious.

I ripped the bandages off of my arms as I walked down the hall. The IV ports should be healed by now anyway. I sighed. I spent 2 hours being asked questions and getting poked and prodded. It took even longer because they made me calm down so they could take my blood pressure. I was irritated and lost. I should've accepted the agents' aid to get back to my room.

I wondered past a few agents, but my pride wouldn't let me ask them for help either. I came down another blinding white hall and noticed large windows show a large lab with computer screens all around. Bruce was in there, absently chewing on his nail and arranging data on one of the screens. I debated going in there and being sociable with him, but he didn't seem like a people person, since he effectively ignored me and Dante earlier. He looked over and noticed me in the window. I guess I was going to have to pay him a visit now.

I smiled and walked through the door.

"Alyss, right?" he greeted.

"Yeah, nice to see you again Doctor." I peered around at all of the strange looking objects around us.

He pushed up a pair of glasses on his nose. "You may call me Bruce."

"Ok then, Bruce." I continued to walk through the lab, careful to not touch anything.

The awkwardness ensued. I pretended to be considerably interested in a large brown contraption on one of the counters as he continued his work.

"Hey," I heard him say softly. I turned to look back at him, grateful that he broke the silence.

"I'm sorry if I seemed ill-mannered earlier. I'm just not too… over-joyed to be here."

"They 'persuaded' you too, huh?"

"Ms. Romanov is very good at persuading."

"Her persuasion is what landed me and Dante here as well."

We grew quiet again.

"So, what's your story?" he asked, not looking away from his work.

I leaned against a counter across from his.

"It's not a particularly interesting one," I warned.

"I'm sure I won't nod off."

I smiled and began, "Well, I guess it all started when we were infants. We grew up in an orphanage until," I gulped and decided to skip over a few parts. "We escaped. We discovered our abilities about that point and after several weeks, met some nice drifters and traveled with them for a year or two. They taught us some valuable lessons, like self-defense, how to get work, scavenging to an extent." I smiled lightly. "It was fun. We eventually left them and traveled across the county on our own. We hardly got by. We made it to the east coast and started working for different people. This is the part I'm not so proud of, but we started making pretty good money. A few days ago, we found ourselves in a compromising position and SHIELD stepped in. So that's how we got here, I suppose."

I looked up and saw Bruce staring at me. My face heated up and I grew self-conscious. I shouldn't have eaten today.

"That's quite a story," he said. "Not at all boring."

I coughed awkwardly.

"So, uh, do you think I could know yours? Your story, I mean."

He smiled sadly, "Maybe one day."

Smooth, Alyss, real smooth.

"So," he said. "How old are you Alyss?"

"Approximately 20." I said bashfully.

His eyes widened. "You're… young. And why approximately?"

I laughed nervously. "No birth certificate. And the orphanage wasn't very good about making up birthdays. So I decided mine would be on July 18th."

"Any special reason why?"

"I remember watching the news and they talked about Nelson Mandela's birthday being on that day. I thought he was cool, so I went for it." My face heated up again and I laughed. "It sounds dorky, I know, but I was kid."

"It doesn't sound dorky at all; it sounds like you were a very attentive child." Bruce smiled at me and I had to force myself to look away.

"When you say that, it makes me feel like you think I still am a child."

"No, no! That's not it at all. It's just relative to me, you kind of are." He noticed my confused expression. "You're half my age."

I chomped down on my tongue in an attempt to keep my jaw from dropping. He didn't seem that old when I had first looked at him, but now I noticed the light graying at his temples. Not to mention that he was a doctor, it must've taken him years to reach that level. I shouldn't have been looking at him the way I was – NOT that I was checking him out or anything, that's inappropriate in itself.

God, I'm even thinking like a child.

"Alyss?"

Bruce's voice caught my attention. I looked up and realized I hadn't said anything.

"Hm?"

"I hope I didn't insult you or anything."

"Oh no! Not at all! I just got caught up in my own thoughts is all." I realized how strange my words sounded and attempted to cover it up. "SO, what are you working on there?"

He looked back to his screen. "Well I'm attempting to track the Tesseract, but I'm also trying to clean up this set up they have on these computers. Whoever was in here last didn't have much consideration for others. Everything's in a mess."

"Some work better in clutter, I suppose." I said.

"Well, I do too sometimes, but it depends on the type of clutter." He slid an icon over and it shot to another computer screen.

"Hey, do you think I can help you in any sort of way?" I offered. I might as well be of some sort of use while I'm here.

He nodded, "You can actually, come here," he motioned me over with his hand.

I walked towards him and the computer and faced the screen.

"You see this?" he pointed towards an opened file that had a bunch of documents with name with a bunch of jumbled letters and numbers. I nodded, trying to concentrate on his words rather than our proximity to each other. "Everything that has 'AV46' in the name needs to go in this folder," he said pointing to another folder. "And everything that has either 'LL' or 'TO' needs to go in this folder."

I nodded and he left my side to go to another computer behind me. I bit back my frown and began to work. We worked in silence for several minutes until I came to a document that I didn't know what to do with.

"Bruce?" I asked timidly.

He grunted in response.

"What should I do with this one?"

I heard him move and he loomed over my shoulder. The blood shot up to my face for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

"Hmm," the sound resounded through my body like vibrations. I silently cursed at myself for being so sensitive.

"I'll take this one." He said and slid the document in an upwards motion, where it ended up at his computer. "You work fast," I looked up at him and he smiled. "You'd make a great secretary."

I kept my dirty thoughts to myself.

I finished my work and sat on the counter, making myself comfortable. We made small talk and after a while, I had forgotten why I had been so upset in the first place. Then I heard footsteps, a lot of them.

"What's wrong?" Bruce asked, noticing how quiet I grew.

"There are people coming. It sounds like they're armed." I said judging by the clanking of metal I heard. I slid off the counter anxiously and rounded over to his side.

He didn't ask how I heard them but instead trained his eyes on the window. I followed suit.

The men turned the corner, leading a prisoner. I could only assume that it was Loki, judging by his strange clothes. Bruce slid off his glasses as we observed him. Loki looked back at us, his eyes scanning our forms. He eyes stopped at Bruce's face and an eerie smile crept on his. As soon as Loki was out of our sight, I turned to Bruce, who was rubbing his eyes.

"Should I ask?"

He shook his head, "You know about as much as I do."

We stood in silence for several more seconds.

"We should find the others." He said and headed for the door. I stuck close behind him, trying to shake the prisoner's creepy gaze from my mind.

I actually enjoyed writing this one quite a bit. I know, I made Alyss kind of immature in this one but she is only 20 you know, and didn't exactly have parents.

Did I make Bruce too out of character? Leave a review and tell me please!

There's going to be a lot of movie quoting for awhile, but I'll try to break it up some.

Thanks for reading! And I really do enjoy reviews and favorites.