[February 10th, 2012- David PoV]

I carried on with my experiment for the implementation of my HIE(Hulk, Inhuman and Extremis) serum as always.

It has been nearly 2 years since I started staying cooped up in my room and working on my projects. I only went out to see Bruce or help out the Ancient One, whenever she was feeling too lazy to do things by herself, which began the day after I had learned everything about magic.

I was so thankful for having learned magic as it accelerated the process of understanding the knowledge held by the space stone a lot along with the anti-HE serum. I had nearly finished understanding all the data within the space stone. I believe I should finish everything just before the Chitauri invasion.

I still felt uneasy though that I can comprehend the data behind one of the infinity stones much faster than the anti-HE serum.

I knew something was wrong, but not exactly what with the data I had.

*Beep* [Life threat] My system chimed. “Show me!”

I ordered as an image of a woman having Nat at gunpoint appeared inside an ice rink. Nat was holding onto the ice floor while most of her body was inside the freezing water of the ice rink.

The detonator held in the woman’s hand told me everything I needed to know, of how Nat ended up inside the Olympic Hockey Rink of Russia. Her scantly dress told me she must have infiltrated as a cheerleader of sorts, into here, after someone, only to walk into a trap.

Seeing her drop inside the water due to losing consciousness from hypothermia I opened a portal; keeping the water at bay with magic I dived in.

Grabbing hold onto Nat’s waist, I moved us to the mirror dimension. I swam up and brought her out of the rink to see the woman who caused her to be in this situation walking away calmly.

Ignoring her, I focused on Nat as I warmed up her body with a spell before grabbing a small blanket from my base to wrap it around her.

*Snap* Coming out of the mirror dimension I stayed beside her as I watched her face, returning colour. It had been nearly 2 years since I last saw her face to face.

“Stop putting yourself in danger like this.” I kissed her forehead before I got up.

As I prepared to open the portal I heard someone coming in. *Click* “Stay where you are!”

I looked to see Phil Coulson walking in worried as he pointed his gun at me.

I smiled as I pulled up my hands, just as Phil looked down at Nat that was slowly waking up. “What did you do to her?”

He asked me in slight anger as I began taking steps back towards the pool of water. “Just say it was you, she won’t like it if she finds out if it was me.”

My reply confused him as he debated on pulling the trigger. “Stop! Answer me what happened to her?”

Instead of replying, I smiled as I stepped back falling into the water. *Splash* I shrunk down with the improved Pym particles, applied to my nanobots, before opening a portal back to my base. The portal will be so small that not even humans could see me. It was my new way of moving around unnoticed.

As I walked into the base I saw Phil running towards the pool and to see I had completely disappeared much to his confusion.

“Uhh…” Natasha groaned as she slowly woke up, causing Phil to turn his attention to Nat.

“Who was that woman?” I asked aloud preparing to wipe out the family of that woman, that placed Nat in that situation.

“Sofia…” *Whizz* My nanobots stopped seeing a portal opening up in the air. *Whoosh* A small red ball came out of it much to my annoyance.

This was the way the Ancient One informed me when she didn’t want me interfering with certain events.

*Whizz* I opened a portal back to the Ancient One’s room in the path of the red ball.

All the portal closed as I sat there, helpless. ‘At least she is safe.’ I comforted myself as I watched Phil lying to her.

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[Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility- Few minutes after Loki stole Tesseract]

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Nick fury got up and warned Agent Hill of Clint’s betrayal. As he was about to run out of the slowly crumbling building, he saw a being in grey silver walking towards him.

It almost looked like the Starks Iron Man suits if one ignored all the spiral in the armour converging on the left side of the armour where something that glowed red sat ominously.

“Stark?” Fury asked as he raised his gun at the piece of metal.

“Go, I will hold off the collapse.” A rough echoing voice came out of the suit and walked past Fury.

Fury’s eyes widened as he realised it wasn’t Tony, but it was no time for discussion or seeing what the piece of tin man can do as the place was about to collapse.

Fury ran out while the being in the silver spiral armour walked up to the unstable rift that was getting violent by the minute as it pulled everything into it.

20 minutes later Fury stood beside the wrecked building.

Fury asked through the radio. “The tesseract is with the hostile force; I have men down. Hill?”

Agent Hill spoke through her radio. “Everyone escaped somehow, but the base still hasn’t collapsed. What happened to it?”

Suddenly Fury remembered the Stark look alike. Phil radioed in and woke Fury from his thoughts, “Sir the base is collapsing.”

*Crash**Boom* Fury felt something very off about the person in the silver armour. “Get Stark on the line, and get back to the base. This is a level 7 and we are at war!”

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[Kolkata, India]

Bruce saw the little girl running out of the small window and chuckled.

“Should have gotten paid upfront Banner!” He stated to himself.

“You know for a man who is avoiding stress you pick a hell of a place to settle.” Bruce turned towards the direction voice was coming from and froze as he saw a friend he had not seen for years.

His face had a look of happiness before it shifted to a face of doubt and shock. 'Something is not right. It was better to say something did not fit in the way she appeared here in front of the unmasked me.'

She should not know him, Bruce Banner. Whenever he saw her it was always as Jeff, but here she was today not for Jeff but for Bruce.

‘But wasn’t she working as a private assistant to some rich fashion designer or something?’

“Why did you bring me here?” Bruce decided to get to the topic at hand as he looked at Natasha curiously.

“You are someone who likes to be direct to the point. I like that. But how did a straightforward person like you manage to escape our grid 6 years ago for nearly 4 years?” Natasha asked with a charming smile.

“Our?” Bruce asked in confusion.

“Shield.” She said with seriousness.

Bruce froze as he heard that. ‘Did David know? Of course, he knows. I do not believe there is anything that he does not. Why did he not tell me then?’

Bruce took out his phone and started tapping onto it.

“Shield huh. How did you find me if you lost me for 4 years?” Bruce asked Natasha.

[You absolute asshole why didn’t you tell me?] Bruce texted David.

However, there was no reply just as Natasha’s attention was drawn to the phone in Bruce’s hand.

[You are watching this aren’t you. I know you are. Reply ASAP before the big guy accidentally does something to her.] Bruce furiously typed which interested Natasha.

“We always kept a close watch on you after you jumped back on our radar while keeping some hounds off you, especially with what happened as soon as you reappeared.” Natasha walked closer to see what Bruce was doing on his phone as she spoke to Bruce. Bruce noticed this and very quickly put the phone in his pocket away from Natasha’s sight.

“Why?” Bruce asked in worry while employing the breathing technique to calm him that which his closest friend had taught him, so as to not kill that friends' girlfriend.

Natasha smiled hearing the question before replying. “Nick Fury seems to trust you, but now we need you to come in.”

Bruce asked with worry. “What if I don’t want to come with you?”

“I’ll persuade you,” Nat said as she approached within the comfort zone of Bruce.

This reply froze Bruce. ‘The fuck! What happened between you and David?’

*Tweet* Suddenly Bruce’s phone alerted him. Bruce defrosted and quickly stepped away from Nat. He took out his phone as he maintained a safe distance from Natasha, which irked her partially.

[I will bring out the big guy and feed him all the green sludge he wants without letting you out for a week if she comes any closer!] There was just that one reply from David.

Bruce took several steps away from Natasha as she watched him in curiosity wondering what he was doing.

[The first message you send me in after not seeing me for 2 weeks is a threat. Fuck you!] Bruce replied.

[And how is it my fault? What happened between you 2????] Bruce quickly added on.

“I don’t think you are capable of that,” Bruce stated as he looked up from his phone to see an impatient Natasha who moved back to a table.

“I don’t like to waste time so I will get to the point. We are facing a potential global catastrophe.” Bruce frowned seeing Natasha suggesting something he won't be liking at all. 'Anything but the big guy.' Bruce prayed.

“This is the tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet.” Natasha passed her phone forward on the table with the image of Tesseract on it, as she sat down.

Bruce took the phone with his left hand while holding his own phone with his right hand.

“What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?” Bruce asked with sarcasm while imagining the big guy liking anything other than that stupid and disgusting green lollipop that made him want to throw up just imagining its taste.

“He wants you to find it. It has been taken. It emits a weak gamma signature that took 2 weeks for us to trace. There is no one that knows gamma radiation like you do. If there was that’s where I’d be.” Natasha explained as she leaned back on the chair she sat on.

'That's it?' Bruce frowned seeing Natasha all relaxed. However, something still didn't feel right. 'If things don't feel right it's because they aren't.' Remembering what David once told him, Bruce looked outside.

'She came alone?' Bruce questioned himself as he saw no one outside; it was just the both of them. The fact she bought him to outside the town still worried him though. It was not because he didn't trust Natasha, just that he found it hard to believe that Natasha could trust and feel safe around Bruce. If he still had the mask off Jeff, he could understand her trusting him, but not as Bruce.

“Where is your team?” Bruce asked Nat wondering if he could trust her and go with her.

“I am here on my own, to talk to you, Doctor. Will you help us?” Natasha had a pleading expression to which Bruce just smiled.

*Tweet*

Bruce put Natasha’s phone down and read his phone’s message. [Push her if you want to.] Bruce took a deep breath.