A/N: Wow! Thank you again to everyone who reviewed, especially DanathaKettu who has been a consistent reviewer the past few chapters. :)

As for something addressed by one of the guest reviewers: Seeing as this chapter marks the end of the Avengers movie plotline, we'll be seeing a bit more Bruce/Amrita interaction/relationship development, and some more Amrita character development as we'll be getting more of her backstory in the next few chapters. So stay tuned! Haha.

Also, sorry. I kind of chickened out this chapter and didn't write the actiony invasion bit. :x Sorry. Forgive me? There will be cute fluff next chapter...

As always, I don't own Marvel/The Avengers. Just Amrita and my plotline for her.

Amrita slowly came back to consciousness, aware that she must have hit her head when the explosion had rocked the helicarrier. She could feel what would have been a concussion repairing itself, the mild itch of the cells regenerating at a rapid pace a reminder of what she was: inhuman. She stirred, slowly sitting herself up as she surveyed her surroundings. It was the same place, but it looked like the place had taken quite a hit with how damaged her surroundings were. She was aware of Natasha speaking, but as she turned her attention to the redhead, she realized she wasn't speaking to her.

"We're gonna be okay. Right?" she breathed, sounding almost panicked. It sounded wrong coming from the normally stoic super-spy. As Amrita located her, she noticed that the redhead was speaking to Bruce, who was crouched over, seeming to be struggling with something. It almost looked like there was something wrong with his face, and…were his eyes green? "I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never…"

"Your life?" Bruce asked angrily.

Only, that did not sound like Bruce.

Another explosion rocked the helicarrier, and Amrita threw her arms over her head so she wouldn't hit it again just when it was healed from the first time round. Debris came down around her, a fairly large chunk landing on her leg before shifting off of it. She grit her teeth as she felt the bone fracture, holding it still while it knit itself back together again.

"Bruce," she heard Natasha say, almost pleading.

Amrita located their forms once again in the dark, as the lights had gone out with the last explosion. Something was wrong with Bruce's form, though. It was…shifting. Growing.

The 'other guy'?

There was a moment's pause once Bruce's form stopped changing. Then, Natasha darted out of the room. Bruce—or the 'other guy'—charged after her. She squinted, trying to make out where they'd gone, but couldn't see outside the room. It was dark out there, too.

There was an inhuman roar.

The hairs on the back of Amrita's neck stood up at the sound. She knew then that Bruce's 'other guy' was dangerous, and it had Natasha set in its sights. She cursed under her breath, focusing on speeding up her healing. She had to help Natasha. The woman may be capable of handling herself, but if she could keep people from getting hurt, then goddamnit, that was what she was going to do. She felt her leg finish healing and immediately shot up, darting out of the room and heading in the direction that she could hear the struggle heading off in.

Amrita was growing frustrated. She could hear the other guy tearing up the ship, but every time she thought she'd found him, she heard him going off in another direction. This was bad. Not only did they have an outside force trying to destroy the helicarrier, they had friendly fire from within, too.

Finally, Amrita found him, and she could feel her jaw drop at the sight. He was large; he was angry; and he was undeniably green.

Somehow this surprised her more than it should have. After all, Tony had remarked about it. She hadn't actually expected him to be so green, though.

She shook her head. She didn't have time to think about that as Thor, who had apparently joined the fight in Natasha's stead (she sincerely hoped that didn't mean the woman was out of commission), reached out his hand and a lethal-looking hammer landed in it as though summoned—and Thor swung with a mighty uppercut, sending Bruce flying outside the helicarrier and into a fighter jet.

Amrita thought, with a lurch of her heart, that maybe Bruce would fall off the jet and plummet to his death, but instead he ripped the tail off the jet and came back for more, throwing the large chunk of metal at Thor, who dodged out of the way.

Amrita could feel the determination running through her veins.

No. No one else is going to get hurt.

Something was changing, but she didn't even pay it any attention. She could feel her limbs grow lighter, yet stronger at the same time. She could feel an itch at her back, and then a slight weight that settled there. The ground grew further away. But she was not paying any of those changes any heed. She was focused on getting to the 'other guy' and keeping everyone on the helicarrier safe. She charged the other guy before he could brawl with Thor again, tackling him straight out of the opening that had been ripped in the side of the helicarrier moments before.

The other guy roared in anger, glaring at her as she had taken him away from his fight. They were both plummeting towards the earth, but for some reason Amrita felt serene about this, as though she knew she could stop at any time.

"Bruce," she called out over the wind rushing past them, hoping she was loud enough for him to hear. If he could even hear when he was in that state. "You need to calm down. I'm not going to let you hurt anyone. It's just you and me, now."

If Bruce heard her, he didn't make it known. The other guy roared and tried to reach up to grab her, but she barrel-rolled away from his grasp. They continued to fall, and eventually the other guy turned his attention to the ground that was rushing up to meet them, looking as though he was resigned to his fate. He curled up into himself, as though trying to protect himself. Amrita sighed and plunged towards him, maneuvering with ease. She grabbed him by one of his enormous legs and slowed their descent without even thinking about it.

That was when she noticed the wings.

She was startled at the sight of them. They were deep auburn, gold, and snowy white. Almost like that of—

An eagle, her mind completed the comparison.

She shrieked, and the wings seemed to dissolve with the sound. Unable to slow their descent anymore, the two of them dropped, the other guy giving a disgruntled sound at the sudden change as they headed straight for the roof of a barn. The other guy made contact first, breaking the hard wood that Amrita was sure would have broken her spine (and that was the most unpleasant thing she'd ever experienced having broken before by a long shot), and they tumbled one after the other into a large haystack. Despite that they still made contact hard enough for Amrita to get several bruises, she was thankful that it wasn't anything worse than that.

Amrita looked over at the other guy, and found that he seemed to have lost consciousness when they made contact, as his features were slowly shifting back into that of Bruce's. She blushed heavily and looked away when she realized that he was naked as the day he was born, crawling out of the haystack and looking around at the building they were in. There were a couple horses in stalls on the other end of the building, and a barn cat came up to her, winding around her legs. She sat down on the floor, accepting the warmth of the creature as it curled up in her lap. She stroked down its spine as she thought about the dizzying event that had just occurred.

She had flown.

Well, mostly she had fallen. But towards the end, she had flown.

How had she changed like that? It had just seemed so natural to her, she hadn't even thought about it when it had happened. Had something like that happened before? She couldn't recall any such thing happening in any of the past lives that she could recall. She wracked her brain trying to remember, but…nothing came to mind.

But it had seemed so natural. Surely, it must have happened before…maybe it just hadn't happened recently. Maybe because she hadn't needed it to happen recently. What had she been thinking about before she had changed? Protecting people? She had been trying to make sure no one else got hurt… She wondered if she could do it again, if she tried. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the thought that she needed to protect everyone. She scrunched up her nose in concentration. After a minute, she opened her eyes, eager to see the result.

There was no change.

She gave a growl of frustration, which spooked the cat. It leapt gracefully off her lap and trotted off, slipping out of the barn through a cat flap on the door. Amrita stared at her hands, wondering how she was supposed to figure out who and what she was when even her own body kept secrets from her.

The barn door creaked open, and Amrita leapt to her feet, thinking that maybe someone had followed their descent from the helicarrier.

An older man stepped cautiously into the barn, eyebrows raised when he noticed her. They shot up higher when he saw Bruce. She made it a point to look in the opposite direction.

"Huh. Definitely not something you see every day," he said. "He was a bit bigger and greener before, wasn't he?"

Amrita nodded.

"Sorry about your roof," she said lamely. She wasn't sure if SHIELD would offer to repair it or not, so she didn't want to make any empty promises.

The farmer shrugged. "Eh. It was 'bout time to fix it up anyway," he said. "Used to be a leak in the part you fell through…it'll just be a bit bigger now."

Amrita chuckled.

"Either way. I feel bad. I didn't mean for that to happen…"

The farmer smiled at her.

"Least you're both alive. A roof can be rebuilt, but a person…"

Amrita pursed her lips, deciding it would be best not to mention her abilities. The farmer seemed to be taking Bruce's 'condition' quite well, but she didn't want to push his mental limits by adding more revelations to the ones he'd already had today.

"Anyway. I'll go see if I've got some clothes that'll fit your man. Can't have him runnin' around in the buff all day," he said, chuckling as he went.

Amrita sat back down on the barn floor, waiting. What for, she wasn't sure. Perhaps she was just waiting for Bruce to wake up so that they could find the team again, but she felt like she was waiting for something…bigger. As though she were waiting for some sort of instruction. Why would she feel that way? It was confusing. Almost as confusing as her transformation was earlier.

Her body was overcome with a sudden feeling of heaviness, as though she were being crushed by a heavy stone.

"Garuda," she heard a male voice say. She knew instinctively that it was the male voice that she had heard during her out-of-body experiences. It almost felt as though the owner of the voice was smiling.

"I've found you."

And then the voice was gone, and she was falling into unconsciousness for the second time that day.

When Amrita came to, Bruce was (thankfully) dressed, and having a conversation with the farmer whose barn they'd broken. The older gentleman noticed her as she sat up, hay sticking out of her hair at odd angles, which she hastily brushed out, annoyed.

"Oh, good. Your fella here was telling me it was pretty important he get going. He was just about ready to leave without you if you didn't wake up soon," he said, raising an eyebrow at Bruce, who had the decency to look embarrassed at the accusation.

"Sorry, doc," he said. "National emergency and all. I wouldn't have left you otherwise."

Amrita gave a wan smile. "Yeah. I understand," she said. Not that she appreciated the fact that he would have left her behind any more because of the circumstances, but at least it kept her from dwelling on it. He had as good of an excuse as there existed. She stood up, dusting off her pants. "Good thing I'm not wearing a skirt today," she muttered. "Do you have any idea how we're going to find the rest of the team, let alone rendezvous with them?"

"Oh, I know where we're going," he said. "Stark Tower."

Amrita just raised an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. "Call it a hunch." He flashed a key at her. "And yes, I have an idea on how we're going to rendezvous with them."

The other eyebrow rose up to join its twin. "Do tell."

"Actually, why don't I show, instead?" he said, beckoning her to follow him as he strode out of the barn and stopped in the yard, smiling proudly at the ride he'd found them. Amrita paled.

"Oh, no."

Bruce grinned.

"Oh, yes."

Bruce and Amrita were enjoying the exhilarating feeling of the wind in their hair as they rode the old, beaten-up motorcycle at its top speed down the highway in the direction of New York City; specifically Manhattan.

Well, Bruce was enjoying the ride. Amrita had shrieked at every bump and swerve for about the first twelve minutes before she'd finally quieted down and buried her face in Bruce's shoulder, holding his middle in a death grip. Bruce would've laughed if he didn't think the force of doing so might crack one of his ribs.

Just as they were reaching Manhattan, a beam of light shot up into the sky, seeming to rip a hole in the sky.

"Damn it," Bruce muttered, unwilling to urge the bike any faster, as they'd slowed down a fair bit due to the city traffic. His cursing caused Amrita to lift her head up in worry.

"What?" she asked, before she caught sight of the portal that was opening in the sky above the city. "…Oh."

"Yeah." Bruce grimaced. "We're going to need the big guns."

"So…you," she said, stating the obvious.

"No, not me. The other guy," he said.

"So…you."

"No. We're not the same. He breaks buildings. I don't."

"Technically, you kind of do," Amrita said. "Y'know, being as you inhabit the same body and share the same mind. Speaking of which, do you black out when you turn into your greener half or are you still aware of what's happening?"

"I…guess I'm still aware, I just don't really have a handle on what the other guy is doing."

"You know, the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem."

Bruce was silent for a moment. "You know, usually I would just tell you not to use such an overused line of advice on me, but…you do have a point."

"I make a point of having points," Amrita said, though she could feel her face flushing at the somewhat-compliment. On top of that, driving slower like they were now made her super aware of the fact that she was touching Bruce, quite fully. A member of the male gender. And not a bad looking specimen, either. "It's very…pointy," she ended lamely.

Bruce chuckled, and they drove in relative silence for a moment, though they could hear the sounds of fighting from up ahead, as the din grew louder as they went. A few moments later, Amrita withheld a sigh of relief as Bruce slowed the motorcycle to a stop in the middle of the street in front of Steve and Natasha. She immediately released her death grip on his torso, allowing him to breathe easy once more.

"Hey, lovebirds. Honeymoon's over," Clint said, looking between the two of them as Amrita scrambled off of the motorbike, giving it the stink eye.

Bruce gave Clint a 'don't-even-start' look before looking around at the damage that had already been done, and the Chitauri still pouring in from the crack in the sky.

"So, this all seems…horrible," he said.

"I've seen worse," Natasha said, straight-faced as ever.

Banner grimaced. "Sorry."

"No. We could use a little worse," she stated decisively.

"Stark? We got him," Steve said over his comm. There was a pause as Amrita assumed he was listening to a response. "Just like you said." Another pause, and then the rest of the team looked up to see a gigantic leviathan-like creature barreling down the street towards them, damaging and toppling buildings as it went.

"I…I don't see how that's a party," Natasha said, her eyes wide for once, betraying her shock at the sheer enormity of what they were up against.

Steve nodded his agreement, then turned his gaze to Bruce as the scientist started walking towards the oncoming monster without hesitating.

"Dr. Banner…now might be a really good time for you to get angry," Steve said, not wanting the man to head into battle unprepared.

"That's my secret, Captain," he said, looking over his shoulder at the rest of the team behind him.

"I'm always angry."

And with that, he transformed.

The team had gathered in the shawarma joint that Tony had been going on about after his brush with death. Now that Loki was once again secured, and they no longer had the threat of the Chitauri invasion to worry about since Natasha had closed the portal, Tony claimed they could use some R&R. And even Amrita, who had done more healing than fighting, felt exhausted enough to raise her glass in a toast to his statement.

Despite that she felt her and Tony's personalities seemed to clash quite badly on a regular day, it seemed that nothing brought people together quite like the threat of impending doom.

"So Bruce," Tony said, breaching the silence but for the clinking of cutlery. "You should come work at Stark Industries. You could live at Stark Tower seeing as I doubt there are a lot of landlords that would want the Hulk smashing up their property every time he accidentally burns his toast."

Bruce gave him a disapproving look. "You and I both know I'm not that prone to having fits," he said. "But I'll think about it." He looked across the table at Amrita, who was getting frustrated as she was trying to eat daintily so she wouldn't look like a slob, but her food kept falling off her fork before it reached her mouth. Bruce grinned and shook his head at the sight, then turned back to Tony.

"What about Amrita?" he asked.

Tony shrugged. "What about her? Doesn't she have a place of her own to go back to?"

Bruce's eyebrows drew together. "She was living in an isolated shack outside the Indian village near where I lived before SHIELD picked her and I both up," he said, recalling how they'd first met. "I doubt she even has a passport… She could use some help to get a regular job," he said, looking pointedly at the billionaire.

Tony balked. "Why not let SHIELD help her get a job? I'm sure they'd be more than willing to, and you're not going to let this go are you," he said, seeing the look that Bruce was giving him.

"Nope."

Tony frowned. "Fine. Hey, Dr. Doom," he said, snapping his fingers to get Amrita's attention. She frowned when she looked up and her food fell off her fork yet again. "Stark Industries is the main shareholder in a hospital not far from here. If you want, I can set you up with an interview there, they should have a couple openings at the moment if my memory serves right."

Amrita's jaw dropped. As she'd been attempting to eat the surprisingly messy food (or maybe it was just because she wasn't used to it and was trying to eat it wrong? She wasn't sure), she had been mulling over what was going to happen next now that the threat to the earth had been thwarted. She had been thinking about how she had felt she needed a change of scenery even before SHIELD had showed up and swept her off to help with the Avengers initiative. And now that she'd made friends with Bruce…well, she wasn't sure she wanted to nip that in the bud before they even really got to know each other. He had been kind to her, and that was something she hadn't experienced in some time. She wasn't ready to go back to the wariness of the villagers in India again.

"I would love that," she said, unable to keep the grin off her face. "Thank you, Mr. Stark. Seriously, I mean it."

Tony rolled his eyes. "The things it takes to get a little respect around here," he muttered, but she could see the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

Thor interrupted everyone's eating by raising his glass.

"Friends, a toast," he said. "May we all battle as gloriously in the future as we have this day."

Amrita raised her eyebrows, feeling as though that didn't really pertain to what she had contributed, but raised her glass anyways, clinking it with everyone else's.

"Indeed," Tony said. "May the Avengers kick much ass and take many names."

"Here, here," Clint said.

Amrita rolled her eyes, hiding her smile behind her glass. It was nice to feel like she was part of something once again.