----- May 1st, 2012 9:14 PM - Queens, New York ----- 

In a park in Queens, the sounds of kids playing ball on the court and younger kids screaming as they ran around were a bit drowned out by the sound of music. Y/N and Peter were sitting at a picnic table leaning over papers as a speaker next to them was playing. There were a couple bags of chips on the table.

Peter and Y/N were jamming and singing along as they drew on the papers in front of them. The drawings consisted of many, many attempts to design a new suit for Y/N.

"Needless to say, I keep in check. She was a bad-bad, nevertheless. Callin' it quits now, baby, I'm a wreck. Crash at my place, baby, you're a wreck."

They were both grinning as they drew.  They don't hear or see the car pull up near them.

"Needless to say, I'm keeping in check. She was a bad-bad, nevertheless. Callin' it quits now, baby, I'm a wreck. Crash at my place, baby, you're a wreck."

The car door opens and out steps Nick Fury, he looks over to the two of them and rolls his eyes at them before walking towards them.

"Thinkin' in a bad way, losin' your grip. Screamin' at my face, baby, don't trip. Someone took a big L, don't know how that felt. Lookin' at you sideways, party on tilt."

Fury stops walking a few yards behind Peter. They both lift their pencils from the papers they were drawing on and lift a finger in the air mimicking many other singers when they get to a high note. 

"Ooh-ooh, some things you just can't refuse. She wanna ride me like a cruise and I'm not tryna lose."

When they finish with that part they both go to continue drawing, But Y/N notices Fury behind Peter. Fury motions him to come over.

Y/N stands and says to Peter, "I'll be right back. And don't touch my chips."

Peter smirks as he continues drawing, "Now I'm gonna take the whole bag."

Y/N grins as he walks over to Fury, the music a lot quieter. Fury stands there with his arms behind his back.

As Y/N gets closer, he says, "What? I'm a little busy at the moment."

"We need to talk. Tell your friend you're needed at home. It's important."

"We can talk here. If it's really that important then I'll tell him I have to go."

Fury blinks once before handing a folder to Y/N. He opens it and starts looking through everything.

He pulls out a photo, "The Tesseract."

"Howard Stark pulled it out the Ocean when he went searching for the two of you. He like us, thought the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy."

"But someone took it," Y/N says while looking through some of the notes. 

"He's called Loki. He's from.. somewhere far away."

Fury didn't need to say more than that. If anything he knew more than Fury did.

Y/N already knew who Loki was and the fact that he was here. Heimdall appeared to him a few days ago and told him about Loki and the Tesseract. He even mentioned that Thor would most likely show up.

"There's more in the car if you're interested," Fury tells him when he takes back the folder, knowing for a fact that he's interested, before adding, "Oh and there's one more thing we'll need you to do but I'll explain in the car."

Y/N lets out an extremely fake and exaggerated sigh as he walks back over to Peter. Peter was focusing on a drawing on one of the papers. He looks up as Y/N comes up in front of him.

"Hey uh, Pete? I gotta go," He looks over to Fury then back to Peter, "Superman business." 

Peter hands the paper he was drawing on toward him, "Then I guess you'll need this then?"

Y/N grabs it and looks down at it. He looks back up to Peter who was smiling wide, waiting for a response.

"It's perfect. But I'm removing the underwear on the outside."

----- May 2nd, 2012 6:48 PM - Russia ----- 

The sound of a train rumbling nearby causes the old and worn down warehouse to shake in unison. On the third floor a red headed woman is tied to a chair. 

A man to her right, sends a left hook to her jaw. The woman lets out a grunt and slowly turns her head back.

The man who seems to be in charge begins to speak in Russian, "This isn't how I wanted this evening to go."

"I know how you wanted this evening. Believe me this is better," the woman replies.

"Who are you working for? Lermentov, yes?"

The man who punched her walks over and leans the chair over a pit. She starts breathing faster.

The man in charge continues questioning, "Does he think we have to go through him to move our cargo?"

"I thought General Solohob is in charge of the export business."

He lets out a small chuckle, "Solohob. A bagman, a front. Your outdated information betrays you. The famous Black Widow. And she turns out to be simply another pretty face."

"You really think I'm pretty?," she asks sarcastically.

The other man grabs her jaw and forces it open as his boss walks to the table behind him.

"Tell Lermentov we don't need him to move the tanks. Tell him he is out. Well..," he picks up a tool of the table and plays with it as he says in English, "You may have to write it down."

Suddenly a phone rings. The third man watching everything answers his phone, as the other two stare at him annoyed.

After a second, the man pulls the phone from his ear, "It's for her."

The boss man takes the phone from him and says in Russian, "You listen carefully--"

A voice can be heard over the phone as he cuts him off, "You're at 1- 14 Silensky Plaza, 3rdfloor. We have an F-22 exactly eight miles out. Put the woman on the phone or I will blow up the block before you can make the lobby."

He slowly pulls the phone from his ear completely shocked and hands the phone to the woman, who balances it on her shoulder.

The man on the phone quickly says, "We need you to come in."

"Are you kidding? I'm working," she replies in English and annoyed.

"This takes precedence."

"I'm in the middle of an interrogation, and this moron is giving me everything."

The man in front of her look to one of his thugs "I not- give everything." 

The woman just gives him a look before talking back to the man on the phone, "Look, you can't pull me out of this right now."

The man over the phone nearly cuts her off, "Natasha, ..Barton's been compromised."

Natasha goes silent for a couple seconds before stating, "Let me put you on hold."

The man in front of her moves in for the cell phone. Natasha kicks him between the legs and headbutts him. The thug to her left swings his fist at her and she kicks him back as she stands still tied to the chair. The thug to her right runs up as she spins around and the chair legs hit him.

The thug she kicked jumps to his feet. Natasha rolls with the chair and drops the legs on his feet. She whips her head back and hits him in the nose then trips him. 

Natasha spring boards off one thugs back, somersaults, and breaks the chair on the other, Knocking him out cold. The remaining thug grabs her from behind and Natasha bends his hand then hits him with a chair leg. 

She does a front dropkick against him then kip ups back upward. She runs toward him, as he's out of breath, and drops him with a hurricanrana. 

The boss stands and she swiftly walks over to the chain hanging from the ceiling. As he approaches she hits him with the chain, wraps one of his legs in it, and throws him into the pit. 

She leaves him upside down and picks up the cell and her high heels, "Where's Barton now?"

"We don't know," The man over the phone solemnly replies.

"But he's alive?"

"We think so. We'll brief you on everything when you get back. But first, we need you to talk to the big guy."

"Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me," she says as she's walking through the room.

"Oh, I've got Stark.. You get the big guy."

Natasha stops in her tracks, shocked at what Coulson has just said. She looks around the room in silence for a few moments before Coulson speaks up once more.

"Don't worry. You'll have backup." 

----- May 2nd, 2012 8:29 PM - Brooklyn, New York ----- 

Steve Rogers was up late. He was sending a quite a few hits to a punching bag. He seems extremely focused but distracted at the same time and unaware of his surroundings.

He hits the bag harder, faster and then even harder and even faster.

Steve throws the hardest punch he has left and it knocks the bag across the room. 

Breathing hard, Steve walks over picks up another bag from a line of bags on the floor and hangs it up. 

He begins to hit it.

"Trouble sleeping?"

Steve glances to the direction of the voice to see Nick Fury but goes back to hitting the bag, "Slept for seventy years, Sir. I think I've had my fill."

Fury slowly approaches Steve, "Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world."

Steve stops hitting the bag, walks over to a duffel bag that holds his stuff and starts unwrapping the wraps around his hands, "When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost. "

"We've made some mistakes along the way, some very recently," Fury states as he comes up to his side.

Steve glances at him, "You here with a mission, Sir?"

"I am."

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"Trying to save it."

Fury hands Steve a folder with information on the Tesseract in it. 

Steve grabs it and takes a seat on the bench, "HYDRA's secret weapon."

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you and Y/N. He thought what we think. The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."

"Who took it from you?," Steve asks as he hands the folder back. 

"He's called Loki. He's.. not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in."

"Will Y/N be there?"

Fury attempts to hold back what could be a grin, "You know him better than I do. And even I know he'd show up even if I didn't tell him about it."

Steve just gets up, grabs his duffel bag, and another punching bag while Fury is talking. 

"There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment. Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"

Steve continues walking away without looking back.

"You should have left it in the ocean." 

----- May 2nd, 2012 10:17 PM - Kolkata, India ----- 

A young girl sprints across a busy street. She runs through a crowd of people, rushing down an busy alleyway. She runs into a house and up the stairs.

A woman approaches her, Speaking in Hindi, "Who are you? Get out! There is sickness here!"

"Are you the doctor? I need a doctor. My father. My father's not waking up! He has a fever and he's moaning but his eyes won't open," the child quickly says.

A man behind the woman walks up to the both of them and moves over to the girl, "Slow down."

The girl mumbles, "My father.."

The man crouches in front of her, "Like them?"

He points to the people in the house that are sick. The girl nods and holds up a wad of cash.

"Please!"

The man grabs his things and follows the girl out the house. They continue walking closer to the edge of the town. Eventually a shack comes into view.

The young girl is rushing to reach the shack but the man grabs her arm to slow her down. A truck drives by in front of them very slow, he glances at it as it passes. He and the girl rush across the dirt road. The child sprints into the shack and he follows slowly.

He enters in time to see her escape through the window. He's been ditched and he realizes he's been set up.

"Should have got paid up front, Banner," he says to himself in English.

"You know, for a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle."

Banner turns to the left to see Natasha stepping out of the dark.

"Avoiding stress isn't the secret," he says as he drops his bag.

"Then what is? Yoga?"

"And you brought me to the end of the city. Smart," he moves over and peeks out a window, "I.. uh- I assume the whole place is surrounded."

"Just you and me... Oh and him," she points towards Banner's Right.

He looks confused for a moment before turning to see Y/N leaning against a railing. He definitely wasn't there before. Banner couldn't help but feel like he's seen him before.

Y/N smiles at him before saying, "Hey, how's it going?"

"And who exactly are you two?"

"My name's Natasha Romanoff. He's Y/N L/N."

"Are you two here to kill me, Ms. Romanoff? 'Cause that's not going to work out for everyone."

Y/N lets out a snort at that. But before he could break out into laughter, Natasha gave him a look.

"No, no. Of course not. We're here on behalf of SHIELD," Natasha explains.

"SHIELD.. How'd they find me?," Banner asks.

"We never lost you, Doctor. We've kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent."

He takes that in for a moment before asking, "Why?"

"Nick Fury seems to trust you. But now we need you to come in."

"What if I say no?.."

"I'll persuade you."

He looks at the floor for a second, "And what if the.. Other Guy says no?"

Y/N speaks up, a little bored, "Then I'll persuade him."

Banner looks at him in silence. Neither breaking eye contact. Until Natasha breaks the silence.

"You've been more than a year without an incident. I don't think you want to break that streak."

Banner pushes at an old wooden cradle, it creaks, "Well, I don't every time get what I want."

"Doctor, we're facing a potential global catastrophe."

"Oh those I actively try to avoid," he tells her as both he and Y/N let out a chuckle.

Natasha sits at a table, "This is the Tesseract," She slides a phone along the table, On it is an image of the Tesseract, "It has the potential energy to wipeout the planet. "

Banner puts on his glasses, approaches and picks up the phone.

"What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?"

Y/N lets out another snort in the background.

"He wants you to find it. It's been taken. It emits a Gamma signature that's too weak for us to trace. No one knows Gamma radiation like you do. If there was, that's where we'd be."

"So Fury isn't after the monster?" he says as he takes his glasses off.

"Not that he's told me."

"And he tells you everything?," Banner retorts.

"Talk to Fury, he needs you on this."

Banner spits out, "He needs me in a cage?"

"No one's going to put you in a--"

"STOP LYING TO ME!," Banner yells, crashing his hands down on the table. 

In the blink of an eye, Y/N was no longer leaning on the railing. Instead he was sitting cross-legged on the table between Banner and Natasha. Natasha was standing, holding a gun and aimed at him over Y/N's shoulder. 

Dr. Banner draws back smiling, both regretting his outburst and amazed at Y/N, "I'm sorry. That was mean.. I just wanted to see what you'd do."

Natasha stares at him, a little teary, scared out of her mind. While Y/N looks back at her to check on her.

"Why don't we do this the easy way where you don't use that and the Other Guy doesn't try to make a mess? Okay?...."

Natasha lowers her weapon and speaks into an earpiece, "Stand down. We're good here."

A horde of armed guards surrounding the shack can now be seen out the windows lowering their weapons.

"Just the three of us, huh?," Banner rhetorically asks.

Y/N hops off the table and says to the two of them, "Now if the two of you can get along, I have someplace to be."

Natasha blinks once before asking, "Where else could you possibly be needed right now?

Y/N grins before sarcastically shrugging his shoulders as he walks toward the door, "Gotta make a pit stop."

"A pit stop? Where?," she asks him as he stops and turns in the doorway.

"Africa."

----- May 2nd, 2012 11:50 PM - Upper East Side, Manhattan ----- 

Iron Man aka Tony Stark is currently underwater. He attaches a device to a massive pipe. 

He flies up out of the water and towards the city and begins talking with Pepper Potts, "Good to go on this end. The rest is up to you."

Over the call to the helmet, Pepper asks, "You disconnected the transmission lines? Are we off the grid?"

"Stark Tower's about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy. Good thing it wasn't blown up a few months ago."

"Well, assuming the arc reactor actually works and doesn't overload."

Iron Man peels around a corner, heading straight for now finished Stark Tower, "I assume. Light her up."

Stark Tower lights up as Tony flies towards it.

"How does it look?," Pepper asks him.

"Like Christmas... but with more.. me."

"We've got to go wider on the public awareness campaign. You need to do some press," Tony flies over a overpass and up the side of Stark Tower as she continues, "I'm in DC tomorrow. I'm working on the zoning for the next three buildings--"

Tony reaches the top of the tower and cuts her off, "Pepper, you're killing me at the moment. Remember, enjoy the moment."

"Then get in here and I will," she tells him.

He lands on the landing pad of the tower and walks along a walkway, robotic arms deconstructing the suit.

Jarvis speaks up, "Sir, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is on the line."

"I'm not in. I'm actually out," Tony smirks to himself.

"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting."

The arms pull off the chest piece as Tony says, "Grow a spine, Jarvis. I got a date."

Tony walks in the building as the robotic arms pull off the boots of the suit. 

Pepper stands in front of a holographic display, a little confused, "Levels are holding steady.. I think."

Tony approaches Pepper to her right, "Of course they are, I was directly involved. Which brings me to my next question. How does it feel to be a genius?

Tony turns off the display as Pepper and he face each other, "Well, ha, I really wouldn't know now would I?"

"What do you mean? All this came from you," He tells her.

"No, all this came from that," Pepper taps on the arc reactor in Tony's chest.

"Give yourself some credit, please. Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself.. twelve percent of the credit."

"Twelve percent?"

"An argument can be made for fifteen," Tony says as Pepper walks away toward the living room.

"Twelve percent of my baby?"

"Well, I did do all the heavy lifting. Literally, I lifted the heavy things and sorry but, the security snafu? That was on you," He says following.

"Oh!"

"My private elevator."

Pepper grabs a bottle of champagne from the table and pours it into two glasses, "You mean our elevator?"

"Yeah, it was teeming with sweaty workmen," Tony sits down next to her, "I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?"

"Not gonna be that subtle," She states, handing one of the glasses to him.

"I'll tell you what, next building is gonna say 'Potts' on the tower."

"On the lease."

"Call your mum, can you bunk over?"

Jarvis chimes in, Interrupting the conversation, "Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overridden."

Tony picks up his high-tech phone and holds it up as Coulson speaks, "Mr. Stark, we need to talk."

"You have reached the Life Model Decoy of Tony Stark. Please leave a message."

"This is urgent."

"Then leave it urgently."

The elevator opens revealing Coulson with his phone up to his ear and a laptop in the other hand. 

"Security breach," Tony says to no one in particular before turning to Pepper, "That's on you!"

"Phil! Come in," Pepper and Tony walk over to Coulson, who is entering.

"Phil? Uh, his first name is Agent." Tony says, pointing at Coulson.

"Come on in, we're celebrating," Pepper tells him

Tony lets out a clearly fake smile, "Which is why he can't stay."

Agent Coulson hands the laptop toward Tony, "We need you to look this over, as soon as possible."

Tony stares at it, "I don't like being handed things."

"That's fine because I love to be handed things. So, let's trade," Pepper says.

Pepper swaps with Coulson so he has her glass and she has the laptop. She then takes Tony's glass and passes the laptop on to him.

"Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday," Tony lies to Coulson.

"This isn't a consultation."

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asks before quickly adding when Coulson looks at her, "Which I know nothing about."

Tony opens the laptop and walks back towards the currently of holographic display, "The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought, and I didn't even qualify."

"I didn't know that either," Pepper adds.

"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others," Tony continues.

"That I did know," Pepper also adds.

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore," Coulson tells them.

"Whatever. Ms. Potts, got a sec?" 

Pepper leaves Coulson at the elevator door and goes over to Tony as he looks through the laptop.

"You know, I thought we were having a moment," Tony whispers to her.

"I was having twelve percent of a moment."

Tony just gives Pepper a look and she says, "This seems serious. Phil looks pretty shaken."

"How would you notice- why is he Phil?"

"What is all this?" She asks as Tony takes a glance toward Coulson at the door.

"This is- ah," Tony grabs the holograms on the laptop and throws them up. Holograms fill the room, each is a article on one of the Avengers. 

They both look upon the screens, observing them. Until Pepper looks at the one in the center, "Jesus, that kid's tall for his age. Oh and his parents named him after you. That's adorable."

Coulson speaks up in a very exited manner, "Actually, Mr. Stark has his name."

"I'm sorry, his name is what? And how do I have the kids name and not the other way around?" Tony asks soon after.

Tony looks at the hologram and increases the size. It shows a few pictures and videos. Such as the kid carrying Tombstone to space from Stark Tower, holding a plane in mid-air, lifting a bus from a lake, and being unthawed from ice.

Coulson grins as he tells him, "That 'kid' is Superman. And he fought in World War II with Captain America and your father."

"..I'm going to take the jet to DC tonight," Pepper tells Tony.

"Tomorrow."

"You have homework. You have a lot of homework," she says as she watches a video of Y/N fighting HYDRA soldiers during the war.

"Well, what if I didn't?," he turns to her.

She faces him, "If you didn't? You mean when you finished? Well, um, then..," She leans in and whispers in Tony's ear.

Tony smiles as she pulls back, "Square deal. Fly safe."

They kiss and Coulson looks away uncomfortably while still holding the glass of champagne.

"Work hard," Pepper whispers to Tony as she walks toward Coulson, "So, any chance you're driving by LaGuardia?"

"I can drop you off," Coulson says.

"Fantastic. Ooh, I want to hear about the ah- cellist, is that still a thing?"

As they are talking, Tony sees a hologram of the Tesseract and It peaks his interest. He grabs it and looks at it in his hand.

"She moved back to Portland," Coulson tells Pepper.

Pepper and Coulson board the elevator. Tony still enthralled by the Tesseract.

"What?...Boo," Pepper says to Coulson as the Elevator door closes.

____________________