I AM SO DAMN HAPPY! *explodes* I will become an aunt this month! Not to mention that my birthday is coming up next week on the 13th! Grr...but I still hate myself for not updating in MONTHS. That's so not nice, Toy, so not nice. Anyways, enjoy this chapter! Onwards.

Disclaimer: I don't own this awesomeness! *sulks*

Oliver groaned loudly and allowed for his face to come in contact with the pillow under it. Oh he was so bored! He could be baking right about now, but after the other's had caught wind of what he had done, which was sneaking out and interacting with the four Avengers, they had confined him to England's room. And by confined he meant that the lock along with the knob had been magicked away and the windows had been barred shut with the same black tendrils.

"I told you that wasn't a good idea, lad," chided the voice inside his head.

'Oh zip it, Iggy,' he mentally whined in response. With his face still buried on the pillow, he furrowed his thick eyebrows when he heard the laugh echo in his mind scape.

The jester lifted his head and crossed his arms on the pillow, pouting like a little three year old who had been denied his ice cream.

Momentarily forgetting his impatience, Oliver mumbled curiously, "I wonder what the others are doing..."

Outside in the lounge, Spain stretched out his legs from his spot on the beanbag and his arms over his head. He groaned in satisfaction when the limbs popped and the tension in them slipped away. The brunette returned to his original position and looked at the not-quite-sulking-but-almost-there Frenchman beside him on the other bag.

"What's wrong, Jean?" He asked with a head tilt. The blond sprawled back on the piece of furniture he was on and groaned lowly while pointing at the duo ahead, "Those two idiots over there won't shut up."

And indeed, the other blond and albino were talking so loud that it was a miracle that the other occupants of the mansion hadn't come over to investigate. Anyway, the reason to them being so loud was the fact that they had somehow gotten their hands on a computer and were currently playing some horror game that was called Amnesia.

"Dude, did you see that?!" Shrieked America. It still confused the Spaniard to no end that even though the blond was terrified of them, he still continued played the horror games and give himself a great scare.

"See what?" Hissed Prussia, hunched over the keyboard and staring intently at the screen. The character he was controlling was walking down a dungeon corridor with only his burning oil lamp casting a yellow glow on the darkness ahead. It seemed as though nothing was going to pop out, but just as that thought crossed his mind, the door up ahead began to destroy itself. It was the sack monster.

"Scheisse!"

"Shit!"

The jesters panicked, making the man turn tail and run away. He turned off the oil lamp and pulled open a random door before bolting in. However, the thing was faster. It clambered into the room and cornered them. "Nein nein nein!" Yelped the spade of cards as he desperately looked for a way out. Meanwhile on the floor beside him, America was rolling on the ground and screaming incoherent gibberish with his gloved hands over his eyes.

A cry of frustration and surprise made him look up through the gaps between his fingers. "W-What?" He squeaked.

Prussia groaned in defeat from where he had face planted the coffee table. He pointed at the computer screen, which read 'You must continue.' in white, floaty and shifting letters. "It killed me," he mumbled sulkily.

Just as America was about to reply, Jean bolted up right from his slumped position and drawled quietly, "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Asked Spain worriedly. His eyebrows furrowed as he stood and padded over to the doorway. Peeking out and looking at both ends of the hall, the jester saw nothing. He leaned back in and stared at Jean with confused green eyes.

"Footsteps, and they're coming this way," mumbled the Frenchman slowly. The blond stood up as well, albeit lazily, and dragged himself over to the brunette still standing on the doorway. "If I were you, I'd hide kid," he told America when he passed by the duo.

The newly arrived man nodded and clicked his fingers just as the aforementioned footsteps rounded the corner and came closer and closer. At that moment Prussia too snapped his fingers, making the computer fade away into thin air.

Tony's eyes narrowed when the group entered the hall where the lounge was. He sped up slightly so that he was at the head before reaching and coming to a halt on the threshold, where he came face to face with a grinning Club and a straight faced Heart. He almost, almost, recoiled at the shot of the person he so wanted to avoid.

"Why hello, Mr. Stark!" Chirped the Joker in black. The other man beside him nodded with a slight frown on his otherwise vacant face.

Before Stark had a chance to voice his answer, which most likely contained a few colourful words, he got cut off by Natasha who practically shoved him off to the side.

"Where have you been this whole afternoon?" She asked lowly, suspicion written all over her face and eyes. Club shrugged nonchalantly and responded lazily, "Here and there." However, he quickly changed his lazy demeanour when he heard the woman's growl. "Okay okay, we have been here all afternoon!"

This time, Clint snorted in disbelief and peeked over the brunette!s shoulder and into the room. He spotted Spade kneeling next to the coffee table, but what caught his attention was the fur ball laying beside the jester. Lifting a finger, he pointed at the thing and said over Natasha's voice, "I never knew that you guys had a cat."

Every set of eyes turned to the confused Joker, who tilted his head and looked down to the floor. His red eyes almost rolled out of their sockets when he spotted the white feline with a brownish mane and tail, blue eyes framed underneath with the outline of the blond's glasses, and the tell-tale cowlick sticking out of its head. The animal stared back up before meowing and pawing at his sleeve.

Spade snapped out of his sort of surprised trance before quickly lifting the cat and settling it on his arm, scratching it between the ears with his other hand. "Of course we have one," he grinned widely despite his inner nervousness. What was America doing?! He was supposed to have disappeared off to the Ball Room for Pete's sake! "We've been here all noon with him. Why do you ask?" He continued with his curious act, which in truth was ebbed with a bit of worry. Had they been found out?

"Just 'cause," responded the redhead curtly, turning on her heel and marching off. She didn't wait for any of the other three to catch up before continuing down the hall and over to the elevator. While the three men outside in the hall scrambled to catch up, Club and Heart turned to Spade and motioned for him to follow. The two then dissipated into thin air. The albino sighed and lowered the cat onto the floor before standing and looking down on it with crossed arms. "Really America?" e chided. "A cat?"

The nation-turned-animal meowed and hopped onto the low table. 'Oh shut up, dude. I didn't mean for this to happen either,' thought America sourly. It really wasn't fair. The other four could flawlessly disappear and appear wherever they wanted while he had to concentrate really hard in order to actually be able to at least do something. And look where that had gotten him! Now he was a damned cat!

Prussia rolled his eyes and lifted the feline up by his scruff before snapping his fingers. The animal's yowls went unheard as they both melted into the shadows.

"That cat was definitely not there when they came," was the first thing that came out of Tony's mouth when they entered the elevator. Beside him, Steve nodded thoughtfully and said with a shrug, "Maybe they just bought it or something?"

"Not likely." Natasha mumbled. She pressed the button labeled 'Basement' before stepping back and allowing for Stark to tap in his security code. Once the screen flashed green and minimised, an opressive and ominous air swallowed the inside of the metal box. The first one to break the silence was Clint with his whispered, "What do you think happened?" At the confused looks he received, the brunette continued, "Bruce doesn't usually go down to the lab, right Tony?"

The billionaire nodded slowly and rubbed his chin. "He only comes when I drag him over, and when he does come by himself it's usually to force me out to eat and shower." However before anyone could say thin do anything else, the elevator jerked slightly and dinged.

The panels pulled back, strangely so they seemed to be stalling a bit, to reveal the normally messy lab with a few startling additions.

Gaping in shock at his beloved basement, Tony stumbled out and looked around in horror. "M...My lab! What happened to it?!" The place was an absolute mess!...not that it wasn't before, but still that didn't change the fact that the floor was cracked and broken with some of the torn pieces located at the other side of the room. Along the floor and walls there seemed to be black scorch marks, as if someone had lit up a fire and left it to burn a bit too close to the surrounding surfaces. Not to mention that on the far wall, a huge gaping hole was found at its centre, roughly the shape of a familiar green giant.

Walking out of the elevator, Clint whistled lowly and said with a chuckle, "This place looks like it's been dragged through hell and back." The other two remaining Avengers stepped cautiously out of the metal box and went to inspect a different part of the room when it became clear that there was nothing better to do other than just stand there looking like fools. The archer shrugged and walked over to a workbench, careful to not step on any loose floor tiles lest he fall and injure himself.

He moved trinkets and other gadgets around the surface before leaning over the side. He trailed his index finger along the edge before pulling it back and rubbing it against his thumb. He lifted the shorter digit off of the longer one and ran his gaze over the pad that was stained in a black sort of powder. Ash.

However, before he could ponder on the matter for longer, a call from across the lab caught his attention. "Hey guys!" Shouted Tony from the direction of the glass wall. "Come check this out!"

The inventor scratched at the black smudge on the reflective surface as the other approached, intent on removing it or at least a portion. He finally managed to tear off a part of the black mass and hold it up for the other's to see clearly in the light. "What do you guys think this is?" He curiously asked, shaking the strand of inky matter for extra emphasis.

"It looks like a leech," commented Steve in an instant. He slowly lifted up a hand and poked the thing, making it sway limply to the sides before coming to a halt. Natasha nodded curtly beside him. "It could be a simple stain from the oil you use or whatever," she stated boredly with a shrug. The redhead then frowned when Tony shook his head quickly. "No, it can't be a stain since A- I haven't used any sort of that stuff in months and B- If it were a simple stain, wouldn't it have disappeared the moment I scratched at it? Besides, it feel weird," mused the brunette out loud. A loud beep coming from the ceiling startled the quad that they got into fighting stances.

"Sir?" Came JARVIS smooth voice. The Avengers visibly relaxed when they saw, or rather heard, that it was only the AI calling.

"Yes, J?" Said Tony while standing up and wiping his hands on his pants. The computer didn't reply; instead, it pulled up several holographic screens around the group. The screens depicted almost every security camera in the mansion, yet they all seemed to be portraying the same image. What was the image? It was none other than a very tired looking and battered Bruce Banner stumbling through the mansion hallways.

Brown eyes widened as their owner flicked his wrist and the small screens merged into a single wide one. Tony and the others watched on as the shirtless doctor moved around aimlessly as if in a daze. "JARVIS where is he right now?"

"Dr. Banner seems to be headed towards the other side of the mansion, sir. My guess is that he is specifically moving to the location where Mr. Odinson was found. Why? I do not know, sir." responded JARVIS. After a few more seconds of walking around sluggishly, Banner disappeared from the frame as he ventured further into the old vowels of the house.

"Come on," said Natasha quickly, already halfway to the elevator with Clint hot on her heels. The other two were quick to follow. No body noticed the black stain on the glass wall melt through the surface or the snake-like arm stretching over to the piece of forgotten matter on the floor before wrapping itself around it and pulling back.

Bruce's movement was sluggish and jerkily, as if he were in a sort of daze or trance. His walk to the Ball Room on clumsy feet was filled with the occasional bump or slip, yet now he stood before the double doors that gave off an ominous feeling. The doctor heaved a long sigh and pulled open the slab of polished and styled wood.

The inside looked even more creepy than the outside. The only chandelier left at the other side of the room had dimmed to the point to where it only gave a few feeble rays of pale golden light. The dying rays made the glass scattered across the black and white floor shine and glitter in a false sense of beauty. All in all, it looked like a depressing and mysterious painting that had come to life.

From the shadows, a pair of oceanic blue and another of blood red eyes narrowed in distaste for the human on the doorway. The owner of the former eyes crouched low in the cloak of darkness and hissed to his companion, "What do we do, Spade?"

Sniffing, the albino mumbled with venom, "We can't get rid of him that's for sure. However," he smirked darkly at the other, "no one said we can't erase his memory." With that, he clicked his fingers and the doctor was pulled into the room before the doors slammed shut with an echoing BANG. Heart smiled slightly and stood up, dusting his black coat in the process before skipping ahead. He stopped just before the faded ring of yellow light and greeted quietly, "Dr. Banner, welcome. If you don't mind me asking, what brings you here?"

Bruce blinked from under the chandelier and responded wearily, "What am I doing here? I...don't know." The brunette squinted at the dark in an attempt to try and figure out who it was, yet he couldn't see anything but a silhouette. He also didn't notice the jester creeping up behind him until the other's gloved hands rose and caught the sides of his head in a tight grip. "We'll make sure you don't remember anything else, dummkopf, " hissed Spade. He didn't give the other man any time to process his words before his hands started to glow a piercing white colour.

The brunette's eyes widened with the feeling of something being tugged inside his head. However, everything soon went black when he slipped into a short sleep caused by the spell. The now knocked out doctor's body slumped to the floor upon being released, surrounded by the faint glow of the chandelier and the two Jokers looking down on it.

Looking up at his partner in crime, the albino smirked and laughed, "He won't remember the last three hours. That's good enough, right?" Heart smiled ruefully and nodded in agreement. The duo laughed loudly and slinked off, not wanting to be near when the prone man woke up a few seconds later.

Miles away in an old building located in the slums of the city, a tall raven haired man paced the wet floor surrounded by leaky pipes. The only sounds that echoed around the room were the steady drips of water falling into puddles and the footsteps of the black boots.

'When would be the perfect time to reveal my presence in this realm?' Mused the man to himself. He tapped the tip of the staff a he held against the floor in deep thought before stopping in front of a boarded up window.

Gazing out into the night with acidic green eyes, the figure smirked mischievously and laughed to himself, "I promised I would return, didn't I, Avengers?"

*gasp* Who's that at the end?! I think it's pretty obvious but whatever. Before I say anything else, I'm sorry if the chapter isn't good enough, but I have just returned from my sister's baby shower and I'm rather tired, but I don't want to post this tomorrow so here we are *grins*! I'm just so glad!...yet I'm sad cause I have played HetaOni and I cried like a baby...like no joke, I did.

AND thanks to all of you whom reviewed and are still with me after this whole time! It never fails to make me smile. Soooo leave a review if you want and good night/day! *waves*