Just outside the new lab, Tony, Steve, Clint and Natasha had built a makeshift fort of all the board games available in the entirety of the Stark mansion.

But currently, everything had been shoved out of the way for a large mat covered with blue, green, yellow, and red dots. Clint was wedged off to one side of the fort with a spinning board.

"Left foot on yellow," he hollered.

Natasha stretched out her leg skillfully to the row of yellow blotches, but Steve and Tony were a different story.

"Ow! Damnit, Stark, that was my leg!"

"Hey, not my fault that your leg is so irresistible," Tony said, and chuckled.

"Well, don't do it again, or I'll have to take care of you later," Steve threatened.

Clint rolled his eyes, and spun the board again. "Right hand red," he muttered.

What followed next was a satisfyingly loud smack.

"Damnit!" Steve hollered.

Tony's face was a bright red. "Your ass was there, I smacked it. Oh well."

Natasha just fell to the ground from the almost impossible position she was in. "I swear, you two just need to make out and get over your sexual tensions."

"Well," Tony smirked, just standing up and brushing himself off, "I don't think that'd be an issue."

Steve just turned red and fell to the ground. "Sometimes I wonder if all those girls you get caught kissing in the janitor's closet are just an act..."

Tony crouched down right next to Steve's ear. "I guess we'll find out, eh, Cap?" He whispered, winking at the soldier.

"Well, hey," Clint interrupted, coming over to help Natasha roll up the Twister mat, "why don't we play something else? Like Monopoly?"

"Everyone knows Tony will win at that. We're in his house right now, what do you think that says about his luck with money?" Natasha chuckled.

"How about..." Steve started, "well, crap. I guess we can't really win at anything when we play with Tony Stark, huh?"

"Clue's always an option," Clint said, and smirked, "just because Tony's a spoiled rich kid doesn't mean his intellect is that great when it comes to solving crimes."

Steve started to laugh, along with everyone else but Tony, when they heard a groan. They all turned their attention to the oversized lab room for the first time since they dragged the Hulk in there, to see Bruce on his side, completely naked.

"Look, maybe I should take care of this myself," Tony said. Clint waved his hand in a sweeping motion towards the door, inviting him to give it a shot.

Tony grabbed a nearby blanket, stuck his key in the lock, turned the door open, and quietly strut into the lab room.

"Hey, Bruce," he started softly, "how are you feeling?" He took the blanket off of his shoulder and wrapped it around Bruce.

"Well," Bruce forced an apathetic chuckle, "I just became an insane green monster twice in less than 24 hours... I'm pretty sure I've been better."

"You know that I'm not a chemistry expert-I mean, that's why you developed this entire experiment in the first place-but I can tell you this one thing: that much Gamma radiation should've killed you. I mean, dude, you should have seen the rat from the cage. I'm sure you don't want the details now, but..."

"So," Bruce tried to push himself up, failing and falling back down to the ground, "what are you trying to tell me?"

Tony rubbed the back of his head. "I'm not completely sure. All I know is that you're alive. And I'm pretty fucking grateful for that. I can't go losing my best friend and my chemistry grade all in the same weekend. Maybe later you can die, but not yet."

Bruce tried to push himself up again, succeeding and wrapping the blanket more around his entire body. "Well, I'm sure the Hu-" Bruce cleared his throat at saying the name of his new alter-ego, "the other guy-" he continued, "probably won't let me die any time soon. I'm pretty nervous to see what happens at even the slightest change in my surrounding environment at the moment."

"You're one of the smartest kids around," Tony said, patting Bruce on the back, "I'm sure that your intellect is strong enough to help you figure it out. Oh-" Tony stopped himself, reaching into his pocket, "I had these fixed for you." He pulled out the glasses that he and Steve found on the floor of lab number one.

"Well, that's one thing we can check off the list," Bruce almost laughed as he took the glasses from Tony's hand and put them on. "Thanks." He reached over and gave Tony a big, Hulk-sized hug.

"Aw," Clint cooed, walking into the room, "you two are adorable."

Tony glared at Clint. "Shut up, birdbrain." His eyes dashed over to Bruce and back to Clint as a warning.

Bruce waved his hand in front of Tony. "It's okay, Tony. I'll be okay…" he took in a deep breath as he shifted to a kneeling position, "for right now."

"Yeah, what's your problem with me caring?" Clint asked, offended, coming and sitting down on the opposite side of Bruce. "I'm only saying..."

"Yeah, yeah..." Tony stood up, waving his hand to brush away Clint's comments, and walked over to Steve's side outside the lab.

Steve greeted Tony, putting a hand on his shoulder. "So," he said, glancing at Tony and then back at the scene in the lab.

"So," Tony said, making it awkward. The awkwardness just escalated when Howard came and leaned against the wall behind Steve and Tony, watching Clint and Bruce. Tony shrugged off Steve's hand instinctively, what with his father being so close to them.

"I have a question," Tony started a new conversation.

"I probably have an answer," Steve said, shrugging. "Shoot."

"When we were fighting Bruce's rage monster, you looked like you completely knew what you were doing, like it was all just the same to you. You looked so... at peace with yourself, which is probably completely the wrong word to use."

"Well, I guess you could say so," Steve glanced down sheepishly, "I happen to have some training from the US Military," Steve replied, rubbing the back of his neck and turning red.

Tony was pretty sure Steve couldn't get any more attractive than he was now, so he kept pushing. "Training... from the US Military?"

"Uh, yeah," Steve looked at Tony with a completely straight face, but Tony knew he was lying. If Steve went into a poker game, he'd be out before the game even started.

"There's something else, isn't there?" Tony asked. What was funny was that he could tell his dad was listening in now. He wasn't completely sure why his dad would want to know why Steve was involved in the military, but Tony wasn't going to object.

"It's really nothing," Steve muttered, turning a deeper shade of red.

Tony decided that if they were alone, he would probably have already started making out with Steve by now; the redder he got, the sexier and more adorable he got. But he resisted temptation. "Come on, you've gotta tell me sooner or later."

"It was this specialized, top-secret experiment program thing. They needed a volunteer and my parents and I weren't exactly well-off, along with the fact that my dad actually used to be in the military and, well, let's just say he's not around anymore..."

Howard couldn't help but interject, just as Tony was about to put his arm around Steve to console him. "Wow, thanks, dad," Tony muttered. No one heard him.

"An experiment program? You've got to tell me more about it," Howard almost shouted in Steve's face, standing directly in front of the young soldier.

"Really, it was nothing. Just some random thing they had me hang around for. And then they gave me training. I suppose they're just waiting for me to become of age for the military, and then they're gonna make me a Captain of a certain part of the army, or something... I don't really know..." Steve started turning around to go somewhere else, but Howard grabbed him by the shoulders.

Tony really wanted to shout, "Hey! He's mine!" ...but he decided against it.

"No, no," Howard said, shaking his head and then looking directly at Steve, "you don't understand. I help develop weapons for the military. I was told about an experimental program. I need you to clarify if this is the one I was told about it."

"It wasn't anything, really!" Steve screamed, pushing back from Howard. Coulson told me not to tell anyone, he thought. He wasn't planning on reneging on Coulson any time soon; he was his only family left.

"Alright, fine," Howard said, walking away, Steve walking in the other direction.

When he was far enough away from him, Howard pulled a fragile test tube out of his coat pocket. "Hey, Rogers!" He hollered, Steve picking up his head automatically like a good-old-fashioned soldier would at his name. "Think fast!" Howard launched the test tube in Steve's direction, but about five feet off.

Steve rolled into a somersault, landing on his knees and catching the undamaged test tube perfectly in his hands.

"Mother of God..." Howard muttered, putting his hands to his mouth. He almost fell over. "It really is... it really is you! The super-soldier! My super-soldier!"

Tony glanced at Steve (his Steve), and his dad, and dropped his jaw. "...the fuck?"

Howard looked at his son, and put a proud hand on Tony's shoulder. "This man in front of you," Howard said proudly, "is the result of my first chemical weapon. SHIELD had me develop a man who could be a part of the army without completely standing out. I developed the super-soldier. Steve Rogers is my super-soldier."

"...but I called dibs," Tony muttered under his breath.

"Sorry?" Steve asked, not sure where he quite fit into this current conversation.

"Nothing," Tony muttered, and winked at Steve.

In the middle of Tony's flirting, the doorbell rang, and Howard sighed. "I suppose I can get that." And he marched, like a kid being sent to his room, up to the foyer to let their guest in.

The next person to come down the stairs to the labs was a very anxious Coulson, all dressed up in a suit.

"Steven Rogers," he scolded, and Steve immediately looked down at the ground, his body ramrod straight like the good soldier he was.

"Yes, sir," Steve responded in a weak and submissive voice.

"You were supposed to be home last night by midnight, and no later. And no one was answering the phone here," Coulson gave a pointed look at Howard, who had followed him down, "so came over myself."

"Wait, you're Steve's uncle, right?" Tony asked.

"Yes, I am. You're Howard's son, if I'm not mistaken," Coulson replied, shaking his hand.

"Yeah, but that's not the point," Tony continued, "how do you know my dad?"

"I'm one of the agents for SHIELD, the company that your father used to work for. But my question is," Coulson turned from his conversations about work to Steve, "why weren't you at home by curfew last night, young man?"

Steve looked up and stared right into Coulson's eyes. "Our... experiment went wrong."

Coulson raised an eyebrow. "It went wrong? How so?" All Steve had to do was make a motion in the destroyed lab's direction.

"Didn't you see what was wrong when you walked past that?"

"I assumed Howard had gone and failed another of his robotics projects again," replied Coulson, shrugging.

"Nope," Steve held his head high, and then made a sweeping motion towards what could be seen of Bruce and Clint. "We had a bit of a mishap with the radiation."

"Oh, for the love of-" Coulson put his thumb and index finger on the bridge of his nose, looking down. "Care to explain exactly what that means?"

"I'm pretty sure, you don't want to know, sir," Steve said, "it's not exactly a pretty sight. You can tell by the state Bruce is in now. He was the victim."

"I just realized," Tony interjected, "that we still have no results. Because for all we know, that exploded rat could have been the work of... y'know..."

"I dunno, Tony, I mean, do you really want to give that a shot?" Steve asked, but Tony's answer was cut off.

"No, he's right," Bruce's voice came from the doorway. He was wearing his very stretched out pair of... shorts now, with Clint's jacket draped over the top of him again, "we need to do it again. I won't be involved. But we have to do it again... at least, you do."

"But not today," Steve said with a warning, glancing at Tony. "We can't exactly afford another problem today."

"But the lab's due tomorrow," Bruce whined.

"Doesn't matter," Steve replied immediately. "Look at the state you're in! Do you really think you're in any condition to do a lab?"

"Well..." Bruce started.

"Look at us," Steve motioned to himself and Tony, "D'you think that after all that we've been through in the past night, we're able to work with one of the most dangerous types of radiation out there? Being this tired and beat up?"

"Cap's got a point," Tony said, hanging his head.

"Before you kids get any further in your decisions," Coulson said, turning to the entire group, his hands on his hips, "I'd really like to know what is really going on here."

Bruce thought about replying, but didn't.

Tony rubbed the back of his neck, but remained silent.

Steve sighed. "In our experiment, Bruce went into the lab room to set up the rats for the gamma radiation and... I tripped over a chair in the control room and started the radiation while he was in there."

"The gamma radiation turned him into a..." Tony faded off, making sure he didn't set Bruce off again.

"A Hulk," Bruce finished, finally able to use the term. "I became a big green rage monster, as Tony calls it. And I'm ashamed to say that the lab back there was my doing. I threw them both against the glass, and smashed around a bit before I finally became... human again."

Tony put his hand on Bruce's shoulder. "I'm glad you're coming to terms," he muttered.

All Coulson could do was sort of stand there, extremely confused. "...human again?" He murmured.

Tony nodded. "Yeah, human again. I'm not sure about you, Mr. Coulson, but I don't exactly consider a giant green rage monster to be human."

Coulson shook his head free of confusion. He walked in front of Steve, his hands behind his back patiently, "Steve, we need to get going."

"Yes sir," Steve glanced at Coulson. He turned over to Tony and Bruce and gave them each a hug. When he released Tony, he winked at Steve in return.

"Sir," Steve shook his head in a terse nod towards Howard, and headed for the door, Coulson on his heels.