Chapter Eight

Bruce looked around the room nervously; he was still too uptight about the situation to relax as Maria said. The other agent left them as well, saying that he had to tidy up. Bruce wasn't sure he wanted to know what that meant.

"You're safe, Bruce," Maria said gently, looking up from her computer. He shook his head. Ross was out there, and he was close by, that didn't count as safe in his eyes. Bruce couldn't shake the haunted look from his eyes that had been in place since Natasha had received the call in Davies' house.

"People are dying because of me," he said quietly. "SHIELD's people and Ross' men." As Natasha had said: more red on his ledger.

"They're dying because they chose to follow the orders of a man like Ross. I was in the army, Bruce; I know they have a choice." He blinked in surprise; somehow he had expected her to have only had time to go straight into SHIELD, to be that high up the ranks. "He isn't sanctioned by the council in this, and they'll be aware of that."

"Then they're loyal to their commander."

"It's not your fault, don't try and convince yourself it is." He watched as she tapped out a list of commands before shutting the laptop and gathering the few traces of their presence in the flat.

"Whose living room did we rent out?" he asked her, gesturing to the cramped and almost unfurnished room around them.

"Hughes went and borrowed the key from an estate agent's. He'll come back and wipe it clean once we've left. There's a plane waiting to take us back to New York, it won't leave until the rest of the division are done with Ross' men, but if you like we can go now. It might make you feel safer." He doubted he would feel particularly safe until he was sure Ross was off his trail. Even so, it was kind of her to think about it.

"Where would actually be safer?" he asked her.

"There isn't much in it, therefore wherever you would feel more comfortable." Bruce smiled slightly, offering to take her bag.

"Then we should probably let him wipe it and get the keys back." She led him across the hallway to a fire escape, walking closer than Natasha had as they went down the backstreet. No one passed them until they came out onto the main road, Maria taking out keys for a silver Astra.

"Budget cuts?" Bruce asked.

"These fit in better than black Acuras with tinted windows." Bruce looked at the dash, pretty sure that it was bugged. He decided to be careful in phrasing his next question.

"And Greyhound?"

"We're looking for him. I'll tell you when I get an update back at the jet." That was a good as her plainly telling him they were being listened to, if not watched. He let them listen to their silence as she drove towards the airfield. As they stopped at a red light a beeping started on the previously silent radio.

"Hill, I've got Doctor Banner with me." Bruce tried to look out of the window to give her some privacy and pretend he wasn't listening.

"Well that answers my question," Fury's voice came through. "Ross isn't with his men in Orlando. He has returned to the San Jose base. His appeal failed. Have Hughes clean up and come back." The radio went dead.

Bruce glanced over at Maria, surprised to see she had a tiny smile on her face.

"He doesn't have a legal excuse to come after you anymore," she told him. "Anything he does now will give us a free hand to move against him."

"SHIELD would fight Ross because of me?" Bruce didn't know if he was pleased by that or not. He was the cause of enough deaths without starting some internal conflict within the army and secret services.

"Of course, we would." He turned to her when she made the pause at we. She was too much a spy to let that slip out by accident. Neither of them said another word until Maria pulled up outside an airfield hanger and they got out.

"It's clean," she told him, taking the bag of equipment out of the back seat. "You told Davies to run." She wasn't accusing him.

"He didn't need that much persuading. He was a good liar, Natasha believed him for long enough. I didn't think he would hurt Juliette though." Maria shrugged as she led him into a small cabin inside the jet.

"She'll live and not make the same mistakes." She crossed her arms as he sat down in front of her. "That's the way it works, Bruce."

"Will SHIELD find him?"

"Probably, he wasn't as good as you were." It felt odd that they kept complimenting him on his ability to hide. It obviously hadn't been good enough to slip under SHIELD's radar. "He has the file though." Bruce had handed Davies the file on him and an explanation of exactly what would happen in every circumstance from his acceptance into the Avengers to him being deemed a threat.

"He has his choices now, without Natasha holding a gun to his head." That was all Bruce knew he could have asked for. Giving Davies time to look his options over. "Thank you, for helping." Maria was taking a risk, how big a one she hadn't shared, but big enough to warrant him owing her a favour.

"You won't be given this chance if a similar situation arises with the other two," she warned him. "Even if we knew where Hemlock and Jupiter were. I can't guarantee I can get the files to them before they're made to come in. Coulson deals with the Avengers now."

"So why are you here?" Bruce found himself asking with a slight smile.

"I deal with Ross." They caught each other's eye for a moment before she looked away. "We'll come down on him like a tonne of bricks if he sends anyone out after you. We have full authority to now. For him to go against a council order, if it puts lives in danger or compromises world security, it's treason."

"He'll go to prison?" Bruce had never thought about what he wanted to happen to Ross, except for him to leave him be. Prison, a cage, Bruce's own nightmare, or something more permanent, neither had entered his mind as he ran.

"Not if the right person catches him first." Maria refused to look at him, pulling up her laptop screen instead. There was a note in her voice that rang of steel. He reminded himself she had mentioned the army. Now he wasn't so surprised.

"Everyone's aboard, ma'am," Hughes told them, his dark head coming round the door. "We're good to go." Underneath them the engines started as the jet taxied out of the hangar.

"An hour and we'll be back in New York," said Maria, offering Bruce a bottle of water. "Hiding's over." They briefly shared a smile before the agent came back and he was left to sit there watching her type up her brief.