Lana dropped to her knees on the plushy gym floor near the top of Stark's tower. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU." she half chanted, half mumbled in Pietro's general direction, seeing as she was looking down at the ground, praying that the horrible vertigo would takes its leave soon. But she glanced up at the sound of his voice, another wave of vertigo washing over her.

"Why would you hate me?" Pietro asked, looking genuinely confused as he leaned back onto a wall.

"It was bad enough this morning," she wheezed, "when you moved me twenty feet in under a second. But now? You just moved me several blocks in under a minute, you ass."

"Serves you right; you're late. Ten minutes late. actually. Did you go walking in Zagreb or something?" Natasha came in, carrying a bottle of water.

Lana rolled her eyes. She hadn't been gone that long. "Did you tell him to go that fast?"

"No, actually. Pietro has one speed, and it's supersonic. I don't think he really has a concept of slowing down." the assassin replied, a slight chuckle escaping her lips. Oh, you knew I was going to get vertigo, didn't you, Natasha? That's why you sent him to get me. You evil, evil person.

"I can, if I choose to." he said haughtily, straightening his spine out.

"Then, goddamnit, CHOOSE to next time." She was about to make another remark when she was splashed with cold water, and subsequently shrieked. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?" she shrieked at Natasha, who had seen Lana's occupation with Pietro, and taken the opportunity to 'wake' her with water.

"Water. It helps with vertigo." she pulled Lana up by the arm, part of which was bandaged. Lana glared at her through squinted eyes. "We're starting up your training. Now." she finished as she threw a punch in the area of Lana's face. Lana narrowly missed as she threw herself to the floor, landing in an unceremonious heap.

"I wasn't ready!" she exclaimed. "And I'm not even in the right clothes!" she moaned, pointing to her structured, not very forgiving, trench coat.

"If someone's attacking you, do you really think they're going to care if you're ready, or if you're in yoga pants?"

"No." Lana said begrudgingly, and squeaked again as she saw Natasha's foot coming towards her arm, which she clumsily rolled away from. "Could you at least show me how to fight instead of just attacking me?"

"I will." Natasha errantly traced the lines on the palm of her hand. "Once I see what you remember from last time." she once again swiped at Lana with her outstretched leg. Lana, who was focusing on getting up to her knees, didn't notice.

"GAH!" was Lana's only response as Natasha landed a kick evenly in her stomach, knocking the wind from her. Pietro, who had still been leaned up against the wall, spoke up.

"Don't you think that's a bit much, Agent Romanov?"

"No, Pietro, I don't. She could have died last night in whatever it is that happened. No enemy is going tell to her what they're going to do before they do. And pain is a part of fighting." she said, a very serious edge to her voice, almost as if she was daring Pietro to back talk her. He raised his hands in surrender.

"Yes, but you could teach me, without kicking the shit out of me." Lana once again wheezed, curled up in fetal position, gasping for breath. She looked to Pietro. "And I can fight my own battles, thanks." He had a slightly affronted look to his face when he heard that.

Natasha rolled her eyes, and realizing that she wasn't going to get far with her first approach, she helped Lana up. "Fine. I'll show you the basics. Again."

Lana, still bent over, replied. "Thanks. I think." she suddenly got an alarmed look on her face, realizing that this would probably be even worse.

"Don't look so scared, Lana. I'm not going to hit you again. Yet." she finished ominously.

After half an hour more, when Lana had flat refused to continue, and had childishly wrapped herself in a ball. Luckily, FRIDAY requested her presence in Stark's lab, as he himself had told her to 'get her ass down there'. Natasha had begrudgingly let her go, although former Russian had made her promise she would spend at least two hours with her tomorrow in the gym. Lana only agreed when Natasha had blocked the exist.

She headed to Stark's lab. Pietro had originally been following her down to the lab, but then, without explanation, turned around quickly and disappeared. Probably twin time, she thought as she pushed open the glass doors to the lab. Lana didn't quite understand why Pietro was suddenly almost stuck to her like glue. She'd met him literally half a day ago, and he was already trailing her like a puppy. She shook her head and saw, through said glass, Banner and Stark talking animatedly about something on the table.

Stark turned around at the sound of the swishing doors. "Whizkid! You made it!"

"Well, it sounded like it was important. And it was either this, or Natasha handing my ass to me on an ornate platter."

Banner spoke up, turning to face her as well as he pulled off his glasses and placed them on the table. "It actually is important. Tony didn't just drag you down here to show you Dummy II, which by the way, is a lot less murderous than it was last night."

"Good to know." Lana said slowly, remember the disaster that was the night before, and shook her head rapidly.

"But," Banner continued, "we did find something interesting." Lana waited for him to continue.

"I think I'll - " Stark started, nearly hopping up in down in excitement.

"No, Tony. You'll embellish it too much, and when you embellish too much, it doesn't end well." Smart man, Banner. Tony showed his dislike by pouting. "After this morning's meeting, Tony and I combed over the hallway beside your room. We found something interesting." he gestured her to follow him to a cleared holographic table. "This is the molecular makeup of a very strange sludge we found." The holograms showed a very weird black substance. "It's almost metallic, and," it appeared to go to a smaller scale, with a graph accompanying it to the side, "it's - "

"Radioactive." she finished. Stark started a slow clap.

"I'm impressed. You don't strike me as the science-loving type."

"I'm not." She gave him an appraising look. "I just remember seeing diagrams like these when I was younger." she said, her mind going briefly to a different time, one filled with laughter.

"How did you see graphs like these?" Banner asked, a interested look on his face, pulling her mind back to the present.

"My father worked at a nuclear plant once upon a time. But let's get back to this." she nodded her head to the substance, not wanting to talk about her past.

"Well, to start, we only found it in very small areas. Originally, because it was splattered, we thought it was your blood..."

"But then," Stark took over, with a wide sweep of his arms, "we remembered that you got out several floors down. So what could this dark, mysterious substance be, we wondered. So, we took samples."

Banner started again. "This morning, when I cleaned your burns, I remember seeing what at the time, I though was coagulated blood. But after we found this, I tested it. It's the same." Her eyes widened, being slightly creeped out, and most certainly disturbed. Black sludge in her burns and cuts? Well, that was a whole basket of joy, that basket being filled with very angry cobras.

"That's a bit weird..." she trailed off, not exactly sure of what to say.

"Yeah, it kind of really is. I mean did you hug whatever this thing was? And if you did anything else, please tell me you used protection." Stark was trying to make light of the situation, but all he actually ended up doing was making things worse.

"So now you believe me." she blew out a gust of air from her lungs, shaking her head at the crazy billionaire slowly. She wanted to punch him, so, so, so much.

Stark huffed. "I didn't say I didn't believe you, I was just being a skeptical scientist."

"Yeah, right." Lana stuck her tongue out at him. Banner's eyes grew wide as looked back and fourth in between Lana and Stark.

"Tony, she saw something, and you didn't think to tell me?" Banner turned to face Stark fully, and judgmental glare on his face.

"I thought she had a concussion." Stark whined, scratching the back of his head.

"She did. But it was a minor concussion."

"Well..."

"Next time, do me a favor, and tell me something that might help us."

"Fine." Stark looked to the ceiling and crossed his arms. Banner looked to Lana.

"What did you see, exactly?"

"At first," she began, closing her eyes, "it was just hazy and smoky. But then, when I tried to get out, there weird noise, almost like breath that someone was taking after they'd been underwater for a while. It was desperate, actually. Then, as I was getting out through the vent, the smoke, it - Well, it was like it almost started to solidify."

"And then what happened?"

"I noped the heck out of there. I don't really think it followed me." she bit her lip. "Do you think Loki did this? Out of retaliation?"

Stark looked up in interest. "What did you do exactly to get him mad at you? Props by the way. Last time I did that, he tried to mind control me, failed, and then threw me out a window. You didn't go all blue eyed and you didn't get thrown through a window."

"I may or may not have made fun of his daddy issues." Stark smacked his face and slowly dragged it down.

"You did what?"

"He was trying to make me upset by talking about my brother. I think, actually, he was trying to get a rise out of me. But then I twisted it around." She made twisting motions with her hands, almost like she was attempting to see whether or not she had Wanda's powers.

"Congratulations. Now a norse god wants to kill you while you sleep." Stark shook his head. "But, nah, I don't think he had anything to do with this. He's right; if he was gonna kill you, he would have done it already. And he's also the type to play with his food before he eats it. This attack didn't really match up with it."

"Great." Lana said sarcastically as she sat down in a spiny chair.

"Why 'great'?" Stark asked, raising his ridiculously bushy eye brows.

"Because now we know that something was in this tower. It wasn't Loki, which means, we don't know what the hell this is."

"I see your point." he fumbled around under a paper-laden desk for a few moments, before pulling out a bottle of scotch and three glasses. "Banner?" the scientist with the ability to turn giant and green shook his head.

"That isn't the greatest of ideas."

"Suit yourself. Lana?" he offered her Bruce's glass.

"With the day I'm having? Oh, yes." she grabbed the glass and poured it down her throat, all at once, not thinking that choice through completely. She gagged as the alcohol burned as it made its way down her throat. Stark took that as a good sign, and offered her another glass. She pushed it away.

"No, thanks. I think I've had my fill of reckless things today." she placed her empty glass on the desk. "So, why did you tell just me all of this? Why not get everyone else together? Cause now, you're going to have to repeat yourself."

"Banner and I," Stark said, grabbing Banner's shoulders, and holding him close, "decided that you'd like to hear first." Cute. Bromance. But she would make fun of them at a later time.

"No, actually," Banner pushed Stark's arm off of him, "we didn't. I said it would be more efficient to tell everyone," he glared at Stark, "together."

"Fine. Let's get this over with. FRIDAY, gather the team. Again." he looked to Banner again, a pleading look in his eyes. "But let's get it over quickly. Pepper's coming back from her conference in Brussels, and I'd rather not tell her about Lana's smoke monster."

"Oh, god. You have a girlfriend?" Lana said in horror. "I feel bad for her, putting up with you. She probably sneaks away at night."

"Ouch." Stark held his heart. But then, he had a sudden look on his face, like he had just realized something. "FRIDAY, were there any disturbances in this tower last night?"

"Yes."

"Yes? What do you mean 'yes'?"

"At 11 PM, small of amounts of smoke were detected entering the building through the main entrance. And then again, at approximately 4 AM, smoke was detected leaving the Living Level Three common area."

"And you didn't tell me this because..."

"You asked regarding Ms. Lazar's room, not the common area, or the main entrance. And the smoke was only detected when it entered, and left."

"Okay, I'm reprogramming you, FRIDAY. How long did you register the smoke?"

"2.1 seconds and then 3.4 seconds." the AI was silent for a moment. "And sir, I didn't mean to upset you."

"Yeah, yeah." Stark waved his hand lazily. He straightened himself, and also straightened an invisible bowtie with both hands.

"Well, gang, let's go tell the rest of the gang."

"How did it get in?" Clint asked, eyes narrowed.

"It floated right through the front door."

"Wouldn't the smoke alarms just go off?" Steve asked, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms.

"The concentration of smoke was too low, and it was only there briefly to be considered a threat. That, though, I'm changing right now." Stark held up the pad he had been furiously pressing on, and then went back to just that.

"But," Banner began, "we're starting installation of old fashioned smoke alarms in each room. It won't look the nicest, but if FRIDAY's wiring is messed with again, these will still detect smoke, unless someone or something purposely disconnects them."

"And how exactly did smoke manage to rip out wires?" Wanda spoke up, while absentmindedly playing with an ice cube from her water, moving in and around the intricate red spiderwebs of her telekinesis.

"We don't know."

"How reassuring." Pietro said dryly from beside Wanda. He gave a reproachful glance to Stark. "And how do we know this threat isn't of your own making, Stark?"

"I'm incredible, I'll admit that. But I can't control smoke. Granted, I've never tried." he looked to the side thoughtfully.

"Stark." Steve said with a warning laced voice, Natasha saying it at the same time as well.

"Hey, don't get mad. I was just thinking."

"Well don't." Lana said. "One unknown is bad enough; don't put gas on the fire. And I remember your experiment last night."

"What happened last night?" asked Pietro.

"Nothing really - " Stark started, but was cut off.

"Bull, Stark. You nearly vaporized everyone last night with that new robot." Natasha said.

"New robot?" Wanda questioned, her eyes narrowing, remembering Ultron. Her brother tensed beside her.

"It's not anything like Ultron; just a drone." Clint reassured the twins. "But yeah, last night? Last night was a disaster."

"Okay, okay. You're never gonna let me forget about last night, are you?" the inventor held his hands up in defeat.

Clint said, "Nope." And then the archer asked a very valid question. "Do we think this is connected to the bodies that keep appearing?"

"Well, that, Robin Hood, is also an unknown." Clint rolled his eyes at the archer jab.

"I'll swab the bodies as soon as I get back to the lab." Banner stated, and Clint nodded his head.

"We cannot fight smoke." Thor said, holding onto to his hammer, almost looking to Lana a bit helpless in a situation wherein he couldn't just smash his opponent into pieces with the said hammer. He turned to his brother, who was reading a book he had taken from the library, looking like he was bred with the current conversation. "Loki? Is there something you could do to fight an enemy like this?"

Loki closed the book with a resounding smack!, and looked up. "There might be." the green eyed god said, smirking at the faces around the table.

"Please, oh sir reindeer, tell us of your evil, dastardly plan." Stark snarked.

"I'll have you know it is far from evil." Loki mono-toned, like he was expecting this response. "But my - But Thor is correct concerning a gaseous enemy is not one we can fight. But we know that it is capable of solidifying."

"Well, I guess it did rip out the wiring..." Banner trailed off, earning a look from Loki.

"Yes, and it also left the 'sludge'," he didn't seem to like that word very much, "on the walls and Ms. Lazar." he said her name like it was sour. I guess he's still a bit mad then. "So we would need to first give it a reason to solidify."

"Aaaaaaaand how would we do that..." Stark asked as he spun around rapidly on his chair. Lana would be laughing if he threw up

"I haven't the faintest idea." the raven-haired god sat back in his chair.

"Well, you're a lot of help, then."

Guys! So, I probably won't be updating for a couple of weeks because I'm going back to Sweden for a bit, and have a full schedule as soon as I get there. But if I can update, I will. But also, I'm feeling so inspired to write! SOOO MUCH FEED BACK. Let me know what you like and what you don't like!

-Sisko