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Disclaimer: I own nothing of Marvel's or Tonka Toys hehe.

Chapter Twelve - I Am Jealous of the Pleiades

"Tony!" Pepper Potts cried as her no-nonsense heels clicked across the helipad and tendrils of her strawberry-blonde hair that slipped loose of their binding whipped around her head in the harsh breeze. The engines of the quin jet whirred to quiet. She wrapped Tony up in a tight embrace. He yelped and laughed slightly when she jostled his tender arm. "I came as soon as I could."

"Easy, Pep. I'm a china doll not a Tonka truck." He joked, gesturing to his sling. Pepper looked lost in her elation that Tony was unhurt. Tony's breath was stolen in the wake of her smile; Bruce could see it plainly on his face and he felt a ripening sense of loneliness within himself at their reunion. Pepper wiped her shining eyes and shook her head.

"Shut up." She cupped his cheeks and kissed Tony soundly. Bruce felt his chest tighten and looked away, feeling like an intruder on their privacy. The rest of the Avengers did the same. They had just arrived back from Israel, still in their black regalia.

"Whoa, I should get blown up more often." He said, his eyes fixated on her lips. Her eyes lit up.

"That is not funny." She chided, still binding him in a hug. After smoothing down the front of his suit jacket she looked to the six behind Tony. She fixed her gaze on Amira first. Pepper, ever the planner, would go directly to her to give her condolences. She stepped away from Tony, her hand slipping from his, to introduce herself.

"You must be Amira." She tenderly said, her voice laden with proper and genuine empathy. Amira confirmed with a shy nod. They took one another's hands. Pepper conversed with her quietly and Bruce was struck with déjà vu. Recently, they had all met on this very helipad. She was so wilted compared to the Amira that had found amusement in his irritation only two days ago. There were scratches and yellowing bruises running up and down her arm and shoulder. Her face still bore a bandage. The funeral attendants back in Tel Aviv had subtly stared at her and whispered to one another. He had to move beside her to block their view so that they couldn't gawk directly. It was bad enough that she had just lost a brother; she didn't need to be eyeballed too.

"We should change and meet in Tony's lab." Steve said after everyone had greeted Pepper. He was on edge, it was evident in his tone. He, like everyone else, wanted to swap information and hypothesize about the attack. They followed the tall blonde man into the building, past the lounge and into the elevators.

Everyone else had got off where they needed to, leaving Bruce and Amira quietly padding down the hallway to their respective rooms. He was carrying his satchel and Amira was hauling her duffel bag.

"Are your cuts bothering you?" He asked her. She shook her head.

"They feel better, thanks to you." She replied, her eyes blankly staring forward. She hadn't slept. None of them had. They both shared dark coloring beneath their eyes. He hummed a note that could be translated as 'that's good to hear'. They arrived at their rooms. It seemed as if they weren't going to say anything more to one another and Bruce could deal with that. He barely knew what to say to her half the time anyway. He put his back to her, determined to slip into his room without garnering her notice.

"May I-" She hesitated and he whirled around to look at her. "May I ask you a favor?" She was clutching the straps of her duffel bag tightly and wrinkling her nose to a small degree. Bruce started, gripping his satchel defensively.

"Sure." He said quietly before shaking out of the odd confusion that had settled upon him. "Yes. Of course." She released a sigh, relieved.

"It's nothing huge, I promise." She flashed her keycard and slid it through the reader. "Wait right there." She left her door hanging open and rushed into her dark quarters. Bruce, now very concerned at what he had just agreed to, craned his neck to get a glimpse of what she was doing. He could hear her mumbling to herself and rustling. Soon, she reappeared with what Bruce recognized as a worn composition notebook. She thrusted it towards him.

"Give this to Steve, please. If it isn't too much trouble." She added on, stammering. When he took it from her hands, he could see that she was still wearing her Halo cuff. He relinquished a small chuckle.

"What is it, if I may?" "English homework?"

"It's my report." She said. She stood across from him in her doorway. Her stockings, though newly purchased, had a run creeping up the side of her calf. She didn't seem to be able to get away with wearing stockings without ruining them.

"It should be complete but you can fill in any gaps where you find them." Instead of looking at him while she spoke, she settled for fiddling with a bit of unstuck tape from her bandages. Bruce stared down at the notebook and then at her, his wheels turning.

"You're not going to debriefing." He realized.

"No. No I'm not." She replied sheepishly. "I thought about it for awhile and-" She bit her lip and glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. There came a sigh and she continued. "I'm going to observe shiva."

"Oh."

"I wasn't sure if wanted to do it. I wrote up my report in case I did. And, well, I am so..." She trailed off, looking down at her shoeless feet.

"You don't want to come down? It might be better if-"

"Please don't." Her teeth were bared slightly and she blinked a few times in rapid succession. She had snapped at him.

"I didn't mean to upset you." He said carefully. "I'm sorry." He wasn't sure if he actually was sorry but it meant nothing to him to lie about it. She shook her head and ran a hand through her dark curls.

"No, please don't be. You're right and if I were a better person I would go, but I'm not." Amira was quiet now and contrite. She looked at him, as if expecting some sort of response. He didn't have one for her so she elaborated.

"It's just- Everything inside me is so fucked up right now and I'm not emotionally equipped to go down there and pretend." Her eyes held his captive as she choked out every word. "I need some time." She enunciated, looking sorrowful and desperate. He wanted to reach out to her somehow but he wasn't certain how or why.

"They will understand." He then turned to leave.

"My handwriting can sometimes be illegible." She said, hurriedly. He faced her again, now a few steps down the hall. "I tried not to rush but if you can't read it just-" Her expression changed from surprise to despair so rapidly. And then, after a moment, she smiled the most astonishing, melancholic smile he had ever seen.

"I was about to say that you could ask Aaron to decipher it for you." She closed her eyes. He could see her eyelids twitching, trying to keep everything at bay.

"Amira-" He began.

"Just have JARVIS let me know, okay?" She said. Her voice cracked.

"Amira." He pleaded as he stepped toward her. She was crying again.

"Goodbye, Dr. Banner." Was all she said before she fled into her room and shut her door soundly.

Bruce's mouth hung slightly ajar but he soon corrected it. If she wanted to be left alone, he was more than happy to oblige her. The last thing needed right now was to get swept up in her hurricane of tears and ruined stockings and devastated smiles.

She slammed the door behind her and pounded her fists mercilessly onto her thighs. After she was sure that Bruce had left her door she let loose a mournful wail. She leaned against the door and allowed herself to slide down to the floor while she gravely replayed Aarons final moments in her head. As she held herself, her fingernails dug into the tender flesh of her upper arms. She could feel her cuts screaming in pain where she upset them but she thrived on the sensation. Everything else was upheaved and ruined but pain was a familiar constant. There was also something incredibly purifying about having a brutal cry. Eventually, her howling tapered off into sobs and her sobs faded to sniffling.

There she sat in her dark room, only aware of far-away things, where she could only vaguely sort out the logistics of dealing with Aaron's death. Where do his personal items go? How do I tell his friends? What about Dad?

What about Dad?

She wished she had something heavy and fragile to heft into the wall at this moment.

She fiercely tried to think of something- anything else so she thought of how terse she had been with him. How he had reacted when she admitted her cowardice and how she had slammed her door in his face. What he must think of her now. She was languishing in her room while the rest of them saved the world. Amira growled to herself. This train of thought felt somehow worse than the last.

"They will understand." She repeated his words from before. He sounded honest, at least, and she hoped he was right.

Determined to think of it no longer, she set into the task of preparing her room for shiva. She rose from her spot and grabbed the linens off of her bed. She dragged them into the bathroom and draped them as best as she could over the mirror there. She exited the bathroom and spied a standing mirror by her bed. She used the fitted sheet to cover it. She was doing her best to recreate the exact environment that had been made in her childhood home when her mother died. She couldn't remember the details like a good Jewish girl ought to. Aaron would tease her for that.

Finally, she put all of her strength into sliding the glass coffee table across the tile floor, creating a decent space for her to use. She snatched a decorative pillow off of her sofa and let it drop into the cleared area. Satisfied, she grabbed the comforter that had been abandoned on the floor and wrapped it around her shoulders. A prayer would have been normally said at this time but she didn't know the words so she bypassed it and settled for plopping down on the decorative pillow.

Her eyes burned from the crying and she could hardly keep them open any longer. She caved in, letting her head rest on her singular little pillow and spreading out on the cool floor with the fluffy, white comforter enveloping her. In the meek light of the afternoon, before the sun was set, she could make out little spinning motes of dust on the floor. She played at them with her fingers and numbly thought about what it would be like to sit somewhere, forgotten, for so long that dust clung to you.

She began to fall asleep in her malaise. The floor would do. She couldn't be bothered to drag herself to bed. She pulled her comforter tighter around her cheeks. A familiar smell tickled her nose. It smelled just like Bruce- like his clothes that he kept in his satchel. She remembered the relief his clean laundry gave her in that stinking vault they had been locked in. She pressed the soft material closer to her face, praying that the smell would protect her from her nightmares.

"It was some sort of God complex-fueled blitzkrieg. He had the nerve to go on waxing poetic- talking about ethics asif he hadn't killed all of those people. He made Jim Jones sound sane." Bruce still clutched Amira's report under his arm as he spoke. The lights had been dimmed in the lab so that every Avenger present could better see the ethereal blue transparent projection screens that hovered above where they all sat. They emitted a hum that Bruce normally found a little soothing.

"So what? He's just a rogue nutjob? Clint asked. He was reclined very carelessly in his chair, arms behind his head.

"Ah, ah, not just a rogue nutjob." Tony said, wagging his finger. "A rogue nutjob with immensely advanced tech. A nut job who tossed aside Mjollnir like it was a doily." At the mention of his legendary weapon being moved so effortlessly, Thor sulked.

"This wasn't a play by a crazy person. It doesn't add up. It was too precise." Steve supplied.

"I don't know, Cap. Loki amassed an inter-dimensional army and nearly brought earth to it's knees and we all know that guy, well- let's just say he was a few bloomers short of a panty raid."

"Though I understand very little of what you just said, Stark, I can only assume it was disparaging my little brother."

"Emil wasn't always like this. That's the thing. The day he was turned into-" Bruce paused, unsure of how to describe Emil since their conditions were so similar, "The day he became the Abomination he was breaking into Desert Base. His motivations were the same as any other spy's. He was going to steal information and sell it. It was pretty routine."

"You're telling us all of this now, Dr. Banner?" Natasha probed. She was sitting in the shadows across from him, her ankles daintily crossed under the table and her eyes narrowed and shining with the pale blue glow of the projections. Bruce lowered his head and sighed. He felt hot and uncomfortable with every other person's gaze so fixed on him. He took a deep breath and began to explain.

"I had been working on a prototype- a device that would kill me. The idea was that it would dose me with enough gamma radiation to vaporize me." He didn't want to see their faces when he mentioned trying to kill himself again. They would never understand what suffering he felt. It wasn't fair how shocked and saddened they were by the piteous Bruce Banner.

"Of course, he didn't know the purpose of the machine. He probably just figured that a machine that required a maximum security clearance to even look at was worth something. He accidentally activated it, exposing him to the gamma radiation instead. His current form is the result of that tampering."

"I tried to stop him and he beat me." Bruce finished somberly. He folded his hands over Amira's notebook, where he had placed it on the table in front of him. "Just like he beat me two days ago."

Clint choked on a sip of water he had just taken from his Stark Tech mug and the rest of the Avengers looked on in a confusion that could be mistaken for offense if one had just walked into the room. Much stronger than his mild amusement at their faces, was the fear that he- that the Hulk was defeated. He was so sure he couldn't be killed, however, if he could be knocked out, there had to be several more possibilities. He could see it in their eyes, as well. There was the fear in them, as well, that something could trounce their 'muscle'.

"I can't really remember." Bruce said, feeling helpless. "That is to say, I don't know how-" He furrowed his brow and chewed on the tip of his thumb, overwhelmed by the eyes boring into him, searching for answers that he didn't have.

"Having had a bout with the Hulk before, it was obvious that this creature was much more agile. It was no easy feat besting it." Thor said. Bruce ignored the placating tone that he took and, instead, busied himself with fighting through the fog that lingered over those moments after he woke up. He didn't even remember seeing Thor fight.

"Hey, don't sweat it, Banner." Tony said. His chin was tilted down and he looked sympathetically at Bruce. "You were caught off guard. We know what we're up against now." Though he knew that this was an attempt by Tony to comfort him, the only effect that it had was angering him mildly.

"It doesn't matter. None of that matters." Bruce replied roughly, an edge creeping into his voice suggesting his anxiety. "He was different this time. He said something." He flipped through Amira's report until he came across the entry that detailed their encounter with Emil. "Here. Here she wrote his words."

Amira's uncanny abilities of recollection left him grateful. She had recorded just this line exactly as he had said it. As if she had remembered it as the only thing of importance he had said. The rest of the Avengers moved in closer to get a glimpse of the dog-eared notebook.

"My master has shown my much." Bruce recited. "I see everything for what it is now." When he looked up from the page the rest of his team were looking from one another, the recognition blooming in their eyes.

"He's working for someone then."

"He's not just working for someone, Nat. He's serving someone." Clint parried. "He specified that he had a master, not a boss."

"We have a lead here." Steve said, his lips pressed into a stern line when he paused. "I think it's time we split and follow up on any contacts that might know anything about an organization or person with the kind of technology capable of hiding this guy for so long." The Avenger's nodded and set about collecting up their effects, each knowing who they would correspond with.

"Ten bucks says it's Hydra. It's always Hydra." Tony muttered to Clint who shook his head and scoffed.

"You're on, Stark." And they shook hands like gentlemen.

As the rest of the Avengers talked strategy, Bruce thumbed through Amira's incredibly detailed report. It was written in a very rigid style and didn't leave out a single instance, lending to her professionalism. Her handwriting wasn't as bad as she had said either, probably as a result of her efforts to make it legible. She described the twisting corridors and the dead man at the end of the hallway just as he remembered them. When he had finished reading the page that detailed their encounter with Emil, he was shaken loose from his thoughts when he realized that he had been asked a question.

"Sorry?" Bruce asked. He removed his glasses and looked up at the standing Steve Rogers.

"Did she say why she wasn't coming down?" Steve said as he leaned against the table they all sat around, his hands balled into fists that supported him.

"Uh, yeah." Bruce tucked his glasses into his shirt pocket. "She's sitting shiva." He supplied, turning over the composition notebook in his hands. "For Aaron."

"Sitting shiva? This is yet another earth custom I am unfamiliar with. You Midgardians amaze me with the depth of your culture." Thor said throwing an arm up, still sitting, legs akimbo, in his chair.

"How long?" Steve said, ignoring Thor. Bruce shrugged.

"I doubt she'll sit for the full seven days. I think she just needs some time." Bruce repeated her words from before.

"Should we not be joining her? If this is, indeed, a mourning ritual?" The great blonde Asgardian insisted, looking somewhat offended that no one else was taking his side.

"It's not for us. It's specific to the deceased's close relatives. Anyone apart of the nuclear family would participate." Natasha, becoming increasingly impatient, tried to clamp down on her irritation in order to educate Thor.

"And there is the small matter of being Jewish, which, I'm certain none of us are." Tony said. He had his back turned to the group while he waved and prodded the air, manipulating his holographic projection.

"Now you speak of Druids!"

"I said Jewish."

"I must admit my confusion. Has anyone yet informed Amira that she is nuclear?" The entire Avengers squad groaned all at once at Thor's misunderstanding.

"That's it, I'm outta here." Widow said, her arms thrown up in surrender. "Let's go, Barton."

"Y'know what, big guy? Why don't we table it for now and I'll explain it all later, okay?" Clint patted Thor on the soldier, as if the hulking man were a perplexed child. Thor nodded and bade him goodbye. He was off, confident that Heimdall would have no trouble setting his sights on this unknown master. Clint was out the door behind his fiery companion. Soon, Steve had followed behind them, saying something about paying a call on some friends at Washington.

Tony and Bruce were left alone in the lab to their own devices just as they were before Amira had come and the Abomination had destroyed Desert Base. Tony was sniffing around in several hundred different government databases, an action which he assured Bruce was 'totally legit'. It benefited Bruce not to think too hard about it. They utilized the hours of waiting for results by digging through old records and chatting. The moonless night came and draped it's blank mantle over the city. After an eternity of sifting through anything that they could glean information from, Bruce had fallen blissfully asleep. His cheek was cradled in his hand where he sat at his desk and his hair was mussed from many an anxious tousling.

"Oh, Banner, you lucky dog." Tony chortled. Bruce jumped with a snort. The Iron Avenger was entertaining himself with one of his glass tablets. After being rudely awoken, Bruce passed his hand over his face and hurriedly put on his glasses.

"Wha? What are you talking about?" His voice was thick with a coarse, post-nap quality.

"Tell me, big guy," Tony slid the glass tablet in front of Bruce so that he could examine it, "what's it like owing a life debt?"

Bruce's vision was still cloudy from sleep, and the brightness of the screen repelled him.

"There, there, there!" Tony said, his words expelled so quickly that they formed one long exclamation. He pressed a finger on the glass. "Watch closely."

Bruce narrowed his eyes. The gray-scale shapes danced before his eyes and he recognized the scene. It was the Hulk fighting the Abomination. The much larger Emil had swung Bruce around before sending him crashing into the entrance to the command center. Bruce cringed. He hated watching himself when he was like that. Emil hoisted a massive chunk of debris over his head and was walking it over to where the unconscious Hulk was laying.

"Why are you showing me this?" Bruce complained. Tony shushed him.

"Here it comes."

Suddenly, Emil seemed to lose interest in Bruce. He dropped his sharp piece of rubble and set off in a different direction. Tony guided his middle finger up the side of the panel, turning the volume up.

"A little mouse in my pantry? I cannot abide it!" The tinny sound of Emil's voice through the speakers captivated Bruce. He hadn't read anything like this in Amira's report. The giant green beast crashed across the room, sending desks flying in his path.

"So, it is a clever mouse."

'Amira.' He knew it had to be her. She must have distracted him somehow so he wouldn't try to crush the Hulk's head with a rock. Emil headed off in a different direction, throwing rubble everywhere. Tony pressed a button on the corner that changed to a different camera with a new angle. The Abomination stopped and drew in a long sniff. Tony tapped the screen to pause it.

"Right there." He pointed to a small dark spot on the feed. "Watch when I play." He tapped it again.

It was Amira, her cloak flickering like an old television with bad reception. She was folded up, hiding behind a desk. Bruce's heart was raked at and squeezed by the claws of an unnamed feeling. He didn't know if he was guilty, anxious, or angry. Perhaps he was all of those things at once. Emil raised a leviathan fist to crush her and, even though Bruce knew she was alive and well in her room, he grit his teeth so hard that they ached as he witnessed her last minute leap to safety.

"Ah, there's the wretched thing." Sang the Emil through the speakers. He could not make himself look away. The cruel monster had allowed her to stand just long enough for him to fling her across the room like one might an unwanted pest.

"Jesus." He breathed. She was laying in the glass now with nothing to protect her; no vest or gun. Bruce was squeezing the edge of his desk, his knuckles white from the strain.

The looming predator delicately lifted her out of the glass. Her legs dangled over the edge of his large palm. When he asked if she had any last words, Bruce slammed a fist down on the desk. Tony protectively snatched his tech away.

"I can't Tony. I can't watch this."

"Aw, you missed the best part! She delivers a pretty solid one-liner." He whined, as he hugged his glass tablet to his chest.

"I can't- Why? Why did she do that?" Bruce was standing now and pacing like an animal.

"It might have had something to do with the ridiculously huge chunk of cement you were about to be crushed by." Tony stated sarcastically, arms crossed.

"It was pointless. I can't be killed."

"Does she know that for sure? Do you?"

"Yes!" Bruce exasperatedly said, turning on Tony. He put his hands on his hips and his eyes flicked away before meeting Tony's again. "No. Maybe? Look, it doesn't matter! You shouldn't have shown me that."

"Why not?"

"I don't think she wanted any of us to know about it. She left it out of her report and, believe me, it wasn't accidental." He picked up the notebook and waved it around briefly before slapping it back down on his desk. "This thing was so comprehensive it verged on redundancy."

"Alright, I didn't know. But I kind of can't undo it. I'm sorry." Tony said, sounding actually genuine. He set the glass down and held his hands up as an act of contrition. Bruce squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, an act so familiar to him, that he probably did it in his sleep.

"You know now, though. Do with that knowledge what you will." Tony aristocratically enunciated every word.

Bruce wanted to promise himself that he would say nothing about it to her. If she didn't mention anything about it, why should he? There was a niggling curiosity at the back of his mind, though and he found it hard to squash.

"By the way, I have something for you." Tony said. He was striding to a corner of the room where he rifled through a pile of different abandoned contraptions. When, at last, he found what he was looking for, he returned.

"Try not to lose this one, 'kay Banner?" He tossed the item over to Bruce, who caught it. "It's the only spare." It was a halo cuff. This one didn't have his name embossed in the side of it.

"It's alright, as presents go." Bruce snarked as he clasped the snug bracelet onto his wrist. "I was sort of hoping for a pony."

"Maybe next year," Tony said, turning to his projections. He thrust one finger up in the air and declared: "And only if you're good!"

Amira woke with a yelp and a violent jolt. She was breathing hard and as soon as she realized herself, she brought her hands to her eyes to wipe away the tears. Only, there were none there. She had merely dreamed that she was crying. Her body was sore from sleeping on the unforgiving tile and she felt her bruises and cuts complain. With a sigh, she crawled - sloth-like - onto her small sofa. There, she curled up in her blanket like a caterpillar in a downy chrysalis.

She felt a faintly familiar, persistent feeling on the delicate skin of her inner wrist. A steady pulse thumped away within her cuff once more. It was Bruce's beating heart come to pull her from the depths of her night terrors.

"Thanks." She whispered and she buried her face in the blankets for a second time. Sleep claimed her shortly thereafter.

Long one, whew. Exposition is HARD. I tweaked Emil Blonksy's backstory somewhat, I hope no one minds.

D'you ever wake up from a nightmare you were crying in and find that you aren't really crying at all? I always feel betrayed, like, what the heck, brain? I was so sad just now and you couldn't even be bothered to make real tears? DOES MY DREAM SUFFERING MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?

"Shiva (Hebrew: שבעה , literally "seven") is the week-long mourning period in Judaism for first-degree relatives: father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, and spouse. The ritual is referred to as "sitting shiva." This state lasts for seven days." - From Wikipedia

I know it says that it lasts seven days but many modern Jews do not sit for a full seven days. Since shiva calls for abstaining from work, many choose to only sit for two or three days. It all depends on the family's wishes, as the ritual appears to be more for the mourners than the deceased.