Author's Note: I know, I know, I didn't put this chappie up until late, late in the day. But I have an excuse. I forgot. Waahhh, please forgive me? ANyway, here we are. Here's to hoping this new chapter will avoid me the wrath of the readers...

"I like that one."

"Really? But it looks so… small." About two months after the initial announcement, Bruce and I were on the internet in his lab, looking at townhouses in New York. If we were going to start a family together, we'd need an actual house. One that actually stayed put.

"It's small, yes, but adorable!" He sighed.

"We can't base this off of looks, Wendy. We need function. Not to mention affordability." I snorted.

"That won't be much of a problem."

"Why's that?"

"Mercenary, remember?" He seemed to regard me curiously from the office chair he was sitting in.

"That's just it, though. Do you really have that much money? I mean, Natasha told me about the apartment they found you in." I sighed. I was going to have to explain this again, huh?

"Okay, imagine you're an officer of the law. You come across a young woman with a good amount of money, plenty of luxuries to show for it, and no career history, at least none on paper. What do you immediately assume?"

"Er… mercenary?"

"Wrong! You assume tax fraud. Which leads to a lot of worse things getting unburied."

"Okay. So, you couldn't use your money because people would get suspicious." I nodded. Finally, he was catching on! "Then why can you use it now?" I waved my hand in dismissal.

"Fury will back me up."

"He will?"

"Oh, he'd better. At least, if he doesn't want to deal with a pissed-off pregnant woman." He gulped.

"Yeah… got it." He stood up. "I just worry, okay?" He said, stroking my tummy, which was already growing. I was still pretty small, (I looked like I'd had a big lunch) but nevertheless, I felt fat; Bruce wouldn't have any of it, and said I looked beautiful. "I want them to have a good home."

"And they will, I promise." A smile grew across my face.

"What's that mean?"

"What's what mean?"

"That smile. That smile always means you've got an idea." I took his hand.

"We're going to San Francisco."

"We're what?!" Just a few hours later, we were in San Francisco, not too far from my old home. Fury had since given up on trying to keep me away from the helicopters. It wasn't the nicest area, and it could have done with a few more trees and less broken glass, but it still felt nostalgic.

"Ah, just breathe that air!" I said as we walked.

"I wouldn't. I'm not sure how good it is for the babies."

"Oh, stop it." I elbowed him in the arm.

"What are we doing here, anyway?"

"You'll see." I led him into an alleyway and started searching around the cement ground.

"Are you planning on dumping my body here?" I snickered.

"Yeah, sure, why not. No, dumbass!" I smiled when my fingers found a crack in one of the tiles. "Aha. Lift this, wouldja?" He walked over, puzzled, and slipped his fingers into the crack, pulling it clean off the ground to find… dirt.

"Well, that was anticlimactic."

"Hardy-har har. Dig." I pulled a shovel out from beneath the dumpster and handed it to him. He took it with a bit of eye rolling, and started to dig. It wasn't long before he hit something. I watched, amused, as he frowned at the "clank" noise it made. He leaned over and dusted off the object, an old brown towel wrapped around something hard and clunky. His eyes widened as he unwrapped it.

"G-gold?" He stuttered. In his hands was a pretty generous helping of pure gold ingots. "But… what? Wendy, what?" I smiled.

"Rather than tote around a bunch of cash all the time, or risk getting noticed with a huge-ass bank account, I converted almost all my money to gold and buried it all around the city."

"Wait… all around the city?"

"Yup! This is just the first X on the map. There's five more to go, so come on!" He followed me, sighing, but smiling all the same.

"You'll be the death of me one of these days."

"Oh, please. You'll outlive all of us with all your "exercise" and "diet" crap." We spent a good part of the day just walking around the city, digging up gold and stashing it in the chopper. If the pilot was suspicious, he didn't say anything. On the way back to the helicarrier, (which was stationed over NY again) I got a call on the comm in my ear.

"Wendy?" It was Pete. He sounded out of breath, and more than a little urgent.

"Pete? What is it, do you need help?"

"We need you in New York, now! It's Electro! He just keeps getting bigger and more powerful, and we-" the comm cut him off, fizzling and crackling.

"That doesn't sound good." Bruce said. I nodded. Without me even having to mention the situation, the pilot sped up, and we got back to NY in less than five minutes. By then, though, a lot of damage had been done.

"This is bad." I said as we stepped out of the helicopter. We had tracked Pete's location to a power plant in the rural outskirts of the city. We could see the problem from there. Electro (big, blue, pantsless electric dude) was making his way fast up the road to the plant. The others, (Pete, Thor and Tony) were trying their best to stop him.

"Hey, Wendy!" I heard a voice at my feet. Looking down, I was not actually that surprised to see Wade's head on the ground in front of me.

"Wade?"

"Hey! Glad you could make it!"

"Erm… where's the rest of you?"

"Pretty well scattered." Geez… if this Electro guy could beat Wade, he had to be pretty powerful. "Hey, would you mind making sure Pete doesn't, you know, die?" I nodded.

"Don't worry; I'll get him back to you in one piece." I started forward.

"Wait!" Bruce grabbed my arm and held me back.

"Bruce, I'll be fine."

"But… the twins." I hesitated for a moment. But only a moment. I knew why they'd called me in; I knew what I had to do. I pulled from Bruce's grip and went running up the road.

"Soon I'll be so powerful no one will be able to stop me! Shocking development, eh?" Electro was ranting.

"Dude!" Pete said as he slung webs at Electro, each melting whenever they got too close. "We've gone over this; the puns are my thing!" Tony was shooting repulsor beams at him, but he wasn't fazed in the least. Thor was laying on the ground on the side of the road. I could only imagine how strong this guy was to do that to him.

"Where's everyone else?" I shouted over the noise.

"Tasha and Clint are in Germany- whoa!" Pete dodged one of Electro's attacks. "And Loki and Rose have a thing in Asgard. We could really use your help here!" Suddenly Electro stopped, and seemed to sniff the air.

"I smell dinner!" He said. He turned to face me, a cocky smirk on his face. "Ooh, you're just brimming with power!" He began to walk toward me.

"Wendy!" Pete shouted. He decided to forgo the webs and just stepped right in between him and me. Electro just punched straight through his chest. Leaving him alive, but twitching on the ground, totally incapacitated. Tony tried to fly up behind him, but with a simple motion of his wrist, Electro had him paralyzed on the ground.

"Dammit… he froze the suit! Wendy, run!"

"Heh. No way, Tin Man. You guys called me here for a reason." I stood my ground as Electro walked slowly, menacingly toward me. That's when a flash of green came out of the corner of my eye, and Hulk was on the guy, punching the hell out of him like the shocks didn't even hurt.

"Get offa me!" Electro shouted. In one desperate move, he used a good bit of his power to shock Hulk with a couple thousand volts. He convulsed furiously and fell to the ground. That was it. This guy was going down. He stood and turned to me.

"You're like me, aren't you?" He said. "We're two of a kind, you and I."

"Not quite." He cocked his head.

"Oh, please explain."

"See, you are electricity. I just conduct it."

"Ha! What can you do against me?" I smirked. I was so going to enjoy this. I lunged forward and thrust my hand straight into his midriff. Bursts of color flashed across my vision as I absorbed him completely, ignoring his screams of protest. Not pain; I doubted he could even feel pain anymore. When the deed was done, I felt… well, how can I put this… about to short circuit. I blacked out.

The next thing I remember was Bruce's voice, calling frantically after me. As I lifted out of my fog, I realized that I could also hear Pete, calling my name. And Tony. And Thor. And that I was running; pretty fast. I looked down at my feet and saw a dusty dirt road, my feet moving at about a hundred miles per hour above it. Looking up and around me revealed an open, grassy field, and… a helicopter, following me at low altitude, with my boyfriend hanging out of it.

"Wendy! Wendy, wake up!" I began to slow my feet, and eventually came to a complete stop. I waited, confused as hell, as the helicopter landed and everyone filed out. "Wendy, are you alright?" Bruce took my head in his hands, worriedly checking for injury.

"How long was I running for?"

"Nineteen hours, Wendy! You're in south Jersey!" Huh… I figured I'd be at least in Pennsylvania by now.

"Lady Wendy, what has happened?" Thor came up, looking confused, with Spidey in tow.

"Yeah, I was wondering the same thing!" Pete said. Tony walked up, still in the suit, and studied me critically before saying;

"Don't worry, according to Jarvis she's alright. The babies are fine too."

"Wendy, what happened to Electro?" Bruce asked. I turned to him and winced, seeing the marks on his face and torn clothes from his fight with Electro.

"I absorbed him." I said. That's when it dawned on me. "All that power he had saved up was too much for me to handle without burning it off, so… I blacked out, and ran to Jersey."

"Wait… you absorbed him?" Pete looked amazed. "I've been trying to get rid of that guy for years, you're telling me you just…?"

"He's not really gone." Bruce said. "I think I know what happened. He's still on this earth, just… scattered. He'll likely come back someday, but it'll take him a while to get himself together." He took my hand in his. "Let's go home now, Wendy."

"Just one thing." He raised one eyebrow questioningly. I raised my hand, and slapped him across the cheek. He looked… well, like he'd just been slapped in the face. "That's for needlessly endangering yourself!" I said. "I would have been fine on my own without you throwing yourself on the guy like it would make any difference!" I administered the same treatment to Pete, and Tony, before climbing into the chopper. "Come on, then. Don't keep the pilot waiting."

"What was that about?" I heard Pete whisper to Bruce.

"She's pregnant, Pete. You might have to get used to it." Fury, of course, had something to say about our exploits. Though not quite what I expected. I braced myself as he walked up to me in his office, looking me in the eye with his one good one.

"Good work, Trescott." That was the one thing I never thought I'd hear out of his mouth.

"Wait, what did you just say?" Bruce was there with me, as were the others who had fought Electro.

"I said, good work. While these jokers ran around trying their hardest to get killed, you actually solved the problem at hand." Pete rubbed his arm sheepishly, and Thor just grunted indignantly.

"Whoa, whoa whoa." Tony protested. "I was doing just fine until she showed up."

"You were doing nothing." Fury said. "The way I heard it, all your repulsor beams were doing were making the guy more powerful."

"I could've, I dunno…"

"You couldn't have done jack." I could see Tony's face from here, squirming uncomfortably in a mix between a shocked expression and a scowl. "But that's not the point I'm getting at." He turned back to me. "Wendy Trescott?" I stood up straight. "How would you like to join the Avengers?" And my jaw fell.

"Wendy?" Bruce said from beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Wendy, are you alright?"

"You want me to be an Avenger? Me?"

"You heard me. Think about it a while, but not too long; I don't like to be kept waiting." My mouth was still gaping as we left the office, and Bruce's hand was still on my shoulder.

"This is a good thing, isn't it?" He said, sitting me down on my bed. "He respects you, finally! Isn't that what you've always wanted? And just think, you could be a part of the team!" I just didn't know what to think. I'd been making jokes for months now about how the guys had "pulled me over to the light side". No more cookies for me, and stuff like that. But now? Now that it was actually happening, that I had very obviously crossed the line between outlaw and hero, it was… it was scary.

"What about the kids?" I said. "They already have one parent in the Avengers. What if something happens to one, or both of us, and they're left to fend on their own? Or worse, what if something happens to them?" Bruce looked thoughtful as he wrapped his arm around me.

"That is a concern." He said. "It's a risk, I won't lie. But we know how hard we both are to kill. And can you imagine either of us ever letting anyone harm our children?" I chuckled halfheartedly. Yeah… the image of Berserker Wendy and the Hulk beating up on someone simultaneously, bonding over their mutual love of destruction… it really shouldn't have been funny, but it was. "And can you imagine it? Our children would be able to call themselves the kids of Wendy and the Hulk."

"That's another problem." I said.

"What is?" I bit my lip and looked down at the floor. It really was a stupid reason. But I figured I should get everything out in the open now.

"I don't have a name."

"A name?"

"Yeah! A superhero name! And cool one, too. Not, like, Squirrel Girl or anything." He snorted.

"That's it?" I looked away, feeling silly. "Tesla." He said.

"What?"

"Tesla. As in Tesla coil." I thought. Short, relevant, rolls of the tongue…

"Yeah. Okay, I can dig it." He chuckled at my outdated lingo. "But… that's not it."

"I know." He pulled me in close, and I buried myself in his chest. "That couldn't be the only thing keeping you from something this big. But if I don't know the problem, I can't help, Wendy."

"I'm scared." I said, my arms around him. "Scared of changing." He didn't say anything, so I continued. "When I got here, I made a vow; I wasn't going to let myself change. I wasn't going to give in to all the touchy-feely "good of the people" stuff you guys value so much here. I was going to earn my freedom, and go back to the way things used to be, the way I always liked it. But now… I don't know who I am anymore. I just don't know!"

"You're Wendy Trescott." Bruce said, rubbing my back up and down. It reminded me of that first day. The first time we ever kissed. "You're a strong, amazing, intelligent, beautiful girl. You're competitive and stubborn, you've got an obsession with firearms and breathtaking anger management issues." I chuckled softly. Of course; Bruce knew I wouldn't fall for flattery. He was being straight-up honest with me in his appeal. Oddly enough, I was loving it. "Most importantly, you know the difference between right and wrong and you're not afraid to stand up for what you believe in. That's the Wendy I know." I nuzzled further into him, and he held me tighter, probably assuming I still needed comforting; not so.

"Thank you." I said, lifting my head and smiling. "Thank you so much. I need to go give Fury my answer."

"I'll come with you." He smiled back and took my hand, helping me off the bed. I made a mental note to mark this day on the calendar; Wendy Trescott has officially crossed over to the light side. Not to worry, though; the dark side may have cookies, but the light side has chimichangas.