Holly POV

"I just don't understand how SHIELD could justify injecting anyone with any amount of the Super Soldier serum after everything that happened with Schmitt, with me or with Blonsky. What were you thinking?" Bruce threw his hands up in the air and walked a few steps away, breathing out of his nose. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as if the very thought of SHIELD using the serum was giving him a migraine.

He'd been researching why Holly had healed much quicker than someone else would from the injuries she'd sustained and discovered that there was a little bonus to her DNA. A portion of Super Soldier serum, nearly a half dose. He'd asked her up to the lab for a checkup and confronted her with the lab results. She'd confirmed that when she was 14 and made an agent, she'd volunteered to be dosed. Bruce's accident had only happened 2 years earlier.

"Bruce, listen to me okay? I've read most of Erskine's research and his theories as well as that of Tony's dad about what happened with the Serum that made Steve Captain America but made Schmit the Red Skull or Blonsky the Abomination. They all had the full dose or in Blonsky's case, nearly 2 doses. And his wasn't the exact kind of dose that Steve had, it was a poor rushed duplicate. Erskine believed that the serum enhanced whatever was already there. In Steve's case, it allowed his inner strength to come out, his noble nature and quick mind. That's why he chose Steve for the program. For Schmitt, it just made his ego and madness worse on top of the fact the serum wasn't ready. And with Blonsky, he was nothing but a sociopath, near psychotic who enjoyed killing. What he became showed that." Of course all that had happened years later after she'd been injected.

"And me? What does the Other Guy say about me?" He turned back, his lips a firm line.

Her heart broke at the sad tone in his voice. She knew that having something like the Hulk within you had to make you question who you were or what kind of person you were. She reached out and took his hand, Bruce nearly jumping, not used to much contact anymore with people so afraid of him and what he became. "Bruce, you once said that your secret was that you were always angry. I read your file years ago. I know what a true monster your father was. What he did you to you and your mother. To be exposed to that kind of violence so young on top of having a high IQ, it's going to give you some understandable issues. The Hulk, more than anything is just your primal instinctual rage, your overly developed defensive mechanism. He lashes out because you can't. Because when you were a kid, you couldn't. He isn't bad. I know you want to think that because you ended up breaking Harlem that the Hulk is evil, but he isn't."

Bruce sighed and looked up. He let out a weak chuckle. "Funny. He agrees with you." He shook his head. "I just can't trust that somehow someone will get badly hurt because of him. Like Natasha back on the Carrier."

"I don't think the Hulk would have really hurt her. Then he was reacting out of rage for the suddenness of the attack, of the argument you all had before it and probably proximity to Loki's Pokey Stick of Destiny thing. He doesn't kill because you won't kill."

Bruce chuckled. "I guess that's as good a name for the staff as any. But you're wrong I have killed."

"I know, but it was because you had no other choice and you did it quickly and humanely." She would have done the same rather than risk the Hulk causing more destruction than was necessary. It was really the only thing he could have done. "Otherwise I know you abhor violence."

"All that beside, I still can't believe SHIELD used the serum."

Holly shrugged. "It worked, didn't it? It doesn't make me a Super Soldier, but it makes me better. I heal faster and my reflexes are better than most."

Bruce sighed. "That's not the point Holly. The dangers! They couldn't have known how the serum would react with your mutant genes! And your age besides!"

"I know. But this time, SHIELD did extensive testing and study. They didn't choose people willy nilly."

"Jarvis, please tell me the SHIELD files on those who were given the option to receive the serum doesn't use the term willy nilly." Bruce said, pinching his nose.

"It does not, Dr. Banner. There is a chance that the report was rewritten to exclude that particular technical term though."

Holly chuckled. "Cute Jarvis."

"I aim to please, Holly."

"Besides Bruce. I'm here and alive because of both you and The Other Guy. You've seen the footage from the fight. We both know the others wouldn't have gotten to me in time. They couldn't have taken out the bot that grabbed me before it would have killed me." She waited for him to soak that in and look up. "You both saved my life and I'm thankful for that. You saved Tony's life during the Battle of NY. You both, you and the Hulk save lives. You might break a few buildings in the process, but you know I'm right."

He sighed. "You are way too much like Tony."

She giggled. "If I had a dollar for every time my dad or my brother said that, I'd probably be in Tony's tax bracket!"

Steve POV

"Read this."

Steve looked down at the tablet that Natasha was all but shoving into his chest, the Quinjet they were taking back to NY on autopilot at the moment. Clear blue skies filled the winows as they sped through the air toward NY. "What is it?"

"Holly's complete SHIELD file. Something tells me you need to read it."

He took the tablet, but didn't look at it yet. "And that something is what?"

"You finding any and every reason to not go back to New York until there wasn't anything to keep you away. I think you're avoiding her."

"I am not. We were working, if you didn't notice."

"And Coulson's team could have handled it without us." She turned in her seat toward him. "You can talk to me, you know. Being friends and all."

"I know." He mentally cringed, sounding a bit more indignant than he really wanted to be.

"You are feeling guilty still that she got hurt under your command. I'm guessing something to do not just with her uncle, but the fact that your old sweetheart was pretty much her mother." She waved to the tablet in his hands. "Read her file. Sorry to tell you, but she'd got more experience at this sort of thing than you do, even with the extended inactive status."

He looked down at the tablet, Holly's basic stats and a slightly younger picture looking back at him. "I'm not going to invade her privacy." He looked up to the redhead. "I haven't read your file, you know. I know it's out there, but it's none of my business. It's not fair for me to go poking into Holly's past either."

She gave him a soft amused look. "I appreciate it, Steve, I do. But Holly doesn't have anything to hide, not like I did. I'm sure she assumes that by now, you already read the file. Besides, she trusts me to know what would be best, just like I trust her. You don't hear me say that everyday."

Steve nodded. That much was very true about the young former assassin. "What is it about her that made you trust her? Your time together in Delta?"

Natasha gave a hint of a smile. "It was a number of things. Mostly the way that she wasn't afraid of me or wary around me when Clint first brought me in."

"Tell me."

She shrugged, absently looking out the window. "Many agents and pretty much the entire council were calling for Clint's head on a platter when he brought me in instead of killing me like ordered. Assumptions that I was a sleeper agent or that he'd been compromised by me." She turned back to him. "But Holly didn't make any assumptions. She trusted Clint's judgment, as did her father and brother. She simply came up to me, held out her hand and asked me in Russian which language I preferred."

Steve smiled. He liked hearing Natasha recount a memory from her past that was happy. "You did better than I did, she pulled a gun on me."

"That's probably my influence on her." A wicked pleased smirk took her lips.

"My thought exactly." He paused. "Do you expect that I'll think differently about her once I read this?"

Nat shook her head, her red curls moving along with her. "Not differently. I think you'll understand more. Go ahead. We still have an hour to go."

He read for most of the plane ride. He read about her getting in trouble in elementary school for using some of the self defense she'd been learning at home on her fellow classmates, namely the bullies. That had made him smile, something they had in common was a distaste for bullies. Sadly little Holly probably didn't get her ass handed to her quite as much as he did.

At age 10, her hands and feet had to be registered as lethal weapons as she earned her first black belt in mixed martial arts. Her telekinesis began to manifest when she was around 12. She was officially a SHIELD agent at age 14. At 15, she'd been forced to kill a North Korean teenager, sent to try and poison the NYC water supply. It was the first of many kills she'd been forced to make.

He read about her life and couldn't blame her for wanting to leave. In just her few years as a SHIELD operative, she was officially credited with nearly 36 kills, either offensive or defensive. That was before she even turned 20. She'd saved countless lives and helped prevent numerous terrorist attacks, including one in England where she had been shot. He wondered if part of her aversion to being in New York again had to do with being faced everyday with the one terrorist attack that she hadn't been able to prevent. Something akin to the sick feeling he got whenever he thought of the Nazis and the 6 million lives they took while he was chasing Schmitt all over Europe.

Her medical history was extensive. Natasha had been right, she'd been injured before and had come back from her injuries every time. The notations to each injury noted most were caused by her going beyond her orders or by something wholly unexpected. One nasty knife wound was caused by her trying to defend a hostage, resulting in 17 stitches across her shoulder blade. Another was a bullet graze across her calf that she earned physically tackling a fellow mutant who'd been part of a mutant rights rally that'd turned into a small riot when anti-mutant protesters arrived.

He was surprised to learn she was one of the few SHIELD agents who had been willfully injected with a weak version of the Super Soldier serum. Enough to help them heal from injuries better than most with less lasting effects with the potential to marginally increase reflexes and strength. That much he had seen when they fought together but at the time had thought nothing of. Barton had superior reflexes without being a supersoldier. He remembered being told about how they had tried to recreate the Super Soldier program with disastrous results, namely in what happened to Banner and some soldier named Blonsky that led to the Hulk fighting something that was officially designated the Abomination. Apparently if it was given to the right person in a weak enough form, it was safe.

In addition to her combat skills, she'd also managed to graduate with honors from the Julliard Music School where she'd worked undercover using her real identity. The file also included her achievements after leaving SHIELD, including getting her PhD in American history and authoring four different books. He wondered how much of an influence Tony was, her accomplishments making him think of the billionaire's vast genius and manic personality.

He read her reviews, the initial one being written by Fury himself. Again and again she was praised as a model operative. She wasn't one to cause collateral damage but wasn't afraid to risk her own to save others. She was ever trying to learn new skills and assist fellow agents in honing theirs. He watched numerous taped sessions where she wiped the floor with male agents who judged her simply for her gender. He smiled after she pinned one such agent, thinking how proud Peggy must have been. She was well on her way to being one of the top operatives in SHIELD.

When she'd stepped away from SHIELD, she'd been level 7. He noticed that Coulson had recently elevated her to level 9, the highest clearance reserved only for his personal team and the Avengers with level 10 reserved for himself as director. She was also marked as an active specialist. He wondered if that was Coulson or Holly, determined not to run back to being a professor after being brought back into the fight.