Awakening

If you continue to claim that I own anything, when I do not, Tony will drop you into an active volcano. I joke not. He owes me for making him a father. *evil grin*

I had been right; neither of us slept a wink that night. Dad stayed awake on coffee, I stayed awake on sugar.

Though I'm pretty sure that Dad was regretting that now, considering that all of the sugar made me extremely hyper and I tend to rant more when I'm hyper. Basically, we were both extremely irritated with SHIELD. Because even though they hadn't really caused this mess, they had been messing around with an alien artifact that was a door through space, and was powering it up.

That was basically sending a "Come and Invade Us" message into the cosmos.

It had really irritated me.

We had managed to read through all of the documents that Phil had given in us in about two hours, so it was a little after midnight when we finished that.

However, we still didn't go to bed.

No, we were bunkering down and getting ready.

For most of the fights that we had gotten into, they had been on short notice and we really hadn't had time to prepare.

We weren't repeating those mistakes again. So, after we finished reading the files we got to work.

Dad worked on the Mark VI suit as well as the Mark VII suit which still wasn't ready for deployment. Jarvis kept insisting that the Mark VII wouldn't be ready for another few weeks, but Dad was dedicated to have it done in case the Mark VI got damaged; which was extremely likely.

I did a lot of things: I upgraded Jarvis, twice, upgraded our coms so they could detect and connect to hidden frequencies (like the ones SHIELD used), I also moved a lot of our valuable stuff in the tower to a locker down stairs (wasn't sure why, I just felt like it,) and gave Jarvis orders to lock down the Tower as soon as neither of us were here.

Dad told me that I wasn't going anywhere, but I disagreed. Just because I didn't have my suit anymore and Telnets/Electra was dead didn't mean I couldn't help.

Becoming partly Immortal had giving me a power boost after all, and I was planning on putting it to good use.

Dad and I greeted the morning with donuts and more caffeine. I knew that we probably should sleep, but neither of us were going to.

We both knew that we were about to plunge straight down into hell again, and we wanted to be ready for it.

Why wasn't my bad feeling going away?

Bruce's POV

I was man enough to admit it.

I was completely and utterly lost. After a flight that took all night, Romanoff, her men, and I finally arrived at the aircraft carrier that was apparently SHIELD's base. We had unloaded almost an hour ago, and almost instantly everyone vanished. Romanoff disappeared to God-knows where and none of the agents who accompanied us had stuck around either.

So there I was, left to wander around the bustling landing deck of the carrier, completely and utterly lost.

I had even asked a few airmen and crewmembers where indoors was, but they just sneered at me and walked away. It seemed that everyone knew of me, and didn't hold me in very high opinion.

With each passing moment Hulk got more and more agitated, and I couldn't blame him. I was unnerved as well, and considering I was the calm, brains out of the two of us, that wasn't good.

But it wasn't just the people's attitude that were setting us on edge, no it was the fact that we were in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by armed men who may or may not be wanting to shoot us.

I had to stop myself from biting my lip as another squadron of agents sneered at me. Hulk growled in warning and I was quick to try and calm him.

"Hey, it's ok Big Guy…these guys are just jerks. Don't let them get to you." I hoped that my words would reassure him, as we really couldn't afford a change in the middle of SHIELD headquarters. No matter what they said, I knew that if that happened, there was no way I was staying on this side of the bars.

My words did nothing, but Hulk seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation and calmed himself. I sent him a strong feeling of gratitude and I swore that Hulk huffed at me in reply.

Neither of us liked this situation, but at the same time I couldn't help but wonder if I was out of my mind.

I bit the inside of my cheek and flinched as another squadron sneered as they marched past.

This wasn't good.

"Jerks."

I froze as Hulk's deep voice echoed through my head, well, that was a first. He had never talked before.

"I agree," was the only thing I could think of to say.

Suddenly, I was drawn out of my shocked thoughts as I heard someone call my name.

"Dr. Banner!"

I instantly spun around, ducking behind another squad who sneered, and sighed in relief as I spotted Agent Romanoff and the blonde haired man I knew to be the famed Captain Steve Rogers, or Captain America depending on who you asked. I let another group of agents passed, and ignored their sneers as I darted over to the only two people on deck who weren't sneering at me.

"Ah!" I said in relief as Rogers offered me his hand. Inside I was almost giddy, the sneers and smirks had really set us on edge. "Hello, they said that you would be here."

We shook hands and Rogers offered me a small smile which I returned. That smile said a lot, it told me that he didn't judge me, or at least he hadn't yet.

"Agent Romanoff." I nodded in greeting and she inclined her head slightly back.

"So, Dr. Banner, the word is that you can find the cube." The Captain said shifted his feet slightly and I noticed that he wasn't as at ease as he seemed.

"Indeed, however I doubt that that's the only word about me." I stated, testing the Captain. Wither or not he knew that it was a test didn't matter, it was his reply that did.

"It's the only word I care about." He informed me, and I hummed but otherwise reserved judgment, while usually he would pass the test, this man had been playing military for a long time. It would take a while to get a good read on him

I decided to move the topic of discussion somewhere a bit safer, for me anyway.

"I imagine that this is all very strange to you." I commented after a moment, gesturing to all of the high-tech planes and equipped men around.

"Well, actually this is all kind of familiar." Rogers stated with a small grin as we slowly started to move through the airfield. Although Rogers and I were in the front, it was obvious that Romanoff was leading our stroll.

"Well, I'm glad that you have that at least." I commented, suddenly not knowing what to say. After all, what did you say to a man who had been frozen alive for seventy years, while he was reminiscing?

"Gentlemen," Romanoff stated, finally breaking the silence as she responded to a voice coming from the com in her ear. "You might want to head inside. It's going to get a little hard to breathe in a moment."

Just as she said this, an alarm blared through the speakers of the ship. I winced and scowled as the noise instantly irritated our sensitive ears, therefor angering Hulk.

I tried to send him soothing thoughts as I glanced around; trying to discover what was going on.

"Is this a submarine?" Rogers asked and I almost couldn't stop myself from snorting a bit, but I did shake my head.

I seriously doubted that SHIELD would hide beneath the water...it just didn't seem like them. But truthfully I knew very little about them, first hand. But from what Penny had told me, it was more likely that they would want to tower over the world then hide beneath it.

However, considering that a submarine was starting to look like an option as the ground began to rumble and Romanoff said nothing to correct the Captain, I said;

"Do you guys really want me in a pressurized, submerged, metal container? What a wonderful recipe for disaster." I rolled my eyes while cursing Penny; she really had been rubbing off on me. Of course, I wasn't completely lying, me in an underwater anything was a bad idea, same idea with pressurized stuff.

"However, why do I get the feeling that we're not sinking?" I asked rhetorically as I followed the captain over to the edge of the ship. That man was curious, I'll give him that.

Once I look down, I had to raise my eyebrow in impression. The water was churning, and considering the whine that was starting to fill the air I assumed that it was turbines beneath the water. Thirty seconds, and a jerk later, the turbines broke the surface of the water, proving me right as we lifted into the air.

Now we were airborne. Great, cause we loved flying.

Hulk agreed with me, and I wondered if SHIELD knew that both of us were scared of heights. I shook my head, disbanning those thoughts as Rogers took a step back against the wind. I just stuffed my hands in my pockets and watched with slight nausea as we rose higher and higher over the sea.

Trying to keep my face from turning green, for either reason, I turned back towards Romanoff.

"I was wrong. This is an even worse idea... so very much worse." I stated, hoping that my voice wasn't shaking as much as my stomach.

Romanoff and Rogers turned to walk away, but they paused when I commented, "Did I ever mention that we, that is, Hulk and I, despise heights with a passion?"

Romanoff just froze, and I had the pleasure of seeing the agent actually shocked, almost gob smacked. That was however, until the small voice in her com told her to get us to the bridge.

The Captain couldn't help but stare at me as we walked inside. I tried to ignore my churning stomach as I hoped that their Bridge didn't have many windows.

We were given a brief tour of the Helicarrier (as Romanoff informed us the flying aircraft carrier was called) before she led us to the bridge. We were shown a few hallways, where the cafeteria was, and our assigned rooms. Thankfully I noticed that mine didn't have a window.

Although my stomach was still churning and Hulk was uneasy, I had to admit that it was impressive. However, I almost passed out as we entered the Bridge. It didn't have a lot of windows, no; half of the room was made of glass!

One giant window is a lot worse than smaller numerous windows. I forced myself to look away and focus on the agents, about fifty in total, who were positioned somewhere on the deck. Their technology was impressive, and for a moment my unease vanished as I realized that Penny would probably love this.

But then it was back again.

"We're at level sir." I heard one of the agents tell Fury as I wandered to the back of the Bridge, as far away from the window as I could get. I managed to sneak a glance over at Fury who was standing amongst a rig of screens in the middle of the room, looking down on his crewmembers; though Penny would probably call them minions.

"Good, lets vanish Hill" Fury stated as he tapped the screen besides him and watched with a satisfied expression as his people worked.

"Man, that guy must be on one large power trip." I thought to myself and Hulk hummed in the back of my mind, agreeing with me.

The woman with a ponytail, who I assumed was Agent Hill nodded. Romanoff had explained to me a bit more about SHIELD, and although I had already known most of it from Penny, I could now identify Fury's right hand.

"Engage retro reflection panels." She called and almost instantly I heard a hum embrace the ship. I assumed that they had been activated.

Once another agent said, "Reflection panels engaged," Fury finally turned to face us. Somehow we had all managed to end up behind him around a glass conference table. What that was doing on the Bridge I had no idea, but I wasn't going to argue with him. I was just glad that we were far away from the glass as possible.

"Gentlemen," Fury stated with a nod. Rogers walked up to Fury, and instead of shaking his hand like I expected him to, Steve pulled out his wallet and handed him ten bucks.

Huh, I wondered what the two betted about...the Captain's surprise perhaps? He certainly did seem a bit out of it.

Rogers wandered off, inspecting the various equipment and the people managing it. If his face hadn't been set in stone I would have thought that I saw some childish wonderment shine through.

"Doctor, thank you for coming." The one eyed, black clad man said as he shook my hand.

It took me a half a second to return the hand shake, as I was trying to calm the Big Guy down and quell my upset stomach. Thankfully, Fury didn't seem to notice or simply chalked it up as me being nervous.

"I appreciate you asking nicely. So, how long am I going to be here?" I enquired turning away from the window just as a bird crashed into it with a thump. A few people snickered at the animal's misfortune but I stiffened as Hulk growled.

Yeah, we didn't like not being on the ground.

"It's alright Big Guy. We're safe, well ok not really but we're not going to fall out of the sky." I tried to reassure him but it did little to calm his nerves, or mine.

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract you're in the wind. Free to go." Fury stated, and I realized just how worn out he looked...well I bet that the past few hours had been hard on him.

"So," I stated deciding that I better get to work, that at least would get my mind off of the fact that I was in a giant metal contraption that was clearly not aerodynamic. "Speaking of which, how's that coming along?"

"We're sweeping every wireless accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops...if it's connected to a satellite, its eyes and ears for us." The man who Romanoff had identified as Agent Coulson stated proudly, drawing our attention.

"Well, not including Stark's stuff." He admitted sheepishly but I wasn't surprised. From what I had heard about the man, he was a genius. Not to mention what he did while flying around in that suit of his.

"Is he getting invited to this little party?" I asked raising an eyebrow at the director. All three agents just looked at each other before looking away. It seemed that Stark was a sticky subject.

"Stark's a bit of a wild card." Romanoff finally admitted with a grimace before sighing and continuing on with the previous conversation. "We won't be able to find them in time."

"Just narrow down your search." I stated with a shrug. Not seeing why they hadn't tried to do that already "How many of the spectrometers so you have access to?"

I aimed this question at Fury, who simply replied, "How many are there?"

"Well then, call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for Gamma Rays. I'll get you a tracking algorithm...it's just basic cluster recognition it shouldn't take me very long to complete." I stated as I look off my jacket, as it was hot in here, and glanced once again at Fury.

"Do you have a place for me to work, preferably someplace without windows? The Big Guy doesn't like heights; and they make me queasy." I explained when the director looked at me weirdly.

My comment seemed to throw everyone off guard for a moment before they snapped out of it.

Fury nodded and turned towards his redhead agent, "Agent Romanoff, will you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory? He will be working out of Lab three."

Romanoff nodded and instantly motioned me to follow her. "You'll love it Doc, we've got all the toys."

I nodded, but before I could take a step, my advanced hearing caught something that I didn't expect.

"Oh, not all of them."

I froze in place, as I swore that I had heard Pen's voice. Thankfully I wasn't still more than a second as I snapped out of my shock and followed the assassin. There was no way that Pen was here, I was probably just imagining things.

I was perfectly comfortable with that line of thought, however, until I saw a swirl of sparks out of the corner of my eye.

Ok, that confirmed it. Penny was here.

I didn't care about the how, as she could teleport anywhere. I just wanted to know why, and what the spelled for the rest of us.

Twenty minutes before in Stark Tower
Pen's POV

"Dad, can I go check on Bruce?" I asked as I tinkered with the Mark VII's wrist band. The calling frequency had been off, so I had fixed it while Dad was working on the Mark VII's HUB.

"Why?" He asked, and I knew that he didn't have a problem with it, but that he just wanted to know where this was coming from.

After over a year together we knew how one another thought pretty well.

"It's just that Bruce's file was in the SHIELD data pack, and I have a feeling that he won't be able to stay out of it. I also know that while Bruce has great control Hulk doesn't take threats lightly. To be truthful I'm just worried about how they'll approach him. We really don't need a Hulk rampage on top of everything else we're dealing with."

Dad sighed as he handed the screwdriver to Dummy. (Yes, we brought the bots with us to NYC, why wouldn't we? They were part of the family.)

"Yes, you may go check on him; and get him up to speed if SHIELD hasn't already brought him in." Dad stated as Dummy dropped the screwdriver on Dad's foot.

"DUMMY!" He yelled and I giggled and the robot chirped an apology. "How many times do I have to tell you, pay attention or you'll get turned into a wine rack!"

"Thanks Dad!" I laughed and handed the bracelet back to Dad and gave him a quick hug. Bruce wasn't the only reason that I wanted to leave, sure, I was worried about him but I was also bored and my bad feeling was causing me to go stir crazy.

"Just make sure that you keep your com in!" Dad called over his shoulder as he turned his attention back to the Mark VII and Dummy.

I chuckled to myself one last time as I charged up my sparks. The funny thing was that I was dressed for a secret mission. I was dressed in all black and blue today, with a bit of green. Black jeans, blue long sleeve shirt, my silver boots, and my green headband.

"I won't be long!" I called as my sparks swirled around me. With my half Immortal status I no longer had to worry about bolts of lightning hitting something when I teleported; for I simply vanish in a cloud of sparks.

Hope this is better than before, I'm hitting the hay considering it's late and I have school tomorrow.

Thanks for everyone's support!

R&R
Cp