Marvel Comics is owned by Marvel Entertainment. Marvel Studios is owned by Disney.

LaGuardia International Airport, New York City, New York, May 20, 2012

For Stan

+9 Days after the Battle of New York

STORY SUMMERY, CHAPTERS 1-20 [6/2/19-7/31/19]: Nat's wanted for assault, and Clint for murder. Tony's got a paternity suit, and Steve 70 years of backpay. Harlem wants to sue the Hulk for damages, and Norway wants to sue Thor for being a false God. NYC wants answers for all the damages done by the Chitauri, and insurances companies are out for blood. The Avengers need a good attorney. Jennifer Walters, at your service. (AU)

Natasha Alianovna Romanoff stood upon the private tarmac of LaGuardia Airport, leaning against the Porsche Cayenne, the vehicle having been modified for use as a private business vehicle for Stark Industries. It was the typical black-out look for an expensive German-made vehicle, and Natasha knew that the modifications weren't only designer; the windows were bullet-proof, the metal panels rated to take even high-powered rifles, and Run-Flats for tires. It was actually fairly typical for her to ride around in such vehicles as a cover operative for SHIELD, the so-called 'Blackwater' variant named after the private military contractors that used such vehicles extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tony didn't skimp on security, not after the Ten Rings and Obidiah Stane.

"Plane should be landing in a minute."

The spy looked over to one of the two traveling companions, one being very familiar to her, while the other was only known to her until rather recently. Clinton Francis Barton was also leaning against the Cayenne, his muscular arms folded against his equally-muscular chest, wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans for the event, though Natasha knew that he likely had a Springfield XD .45 cal pistol tucked to the back of those jeans. No one would suspect the t-shirt wearing, gun-toting, cowboy-looking man as the Hawkeye, the both of them dealing with the ramifications of being world-famous superheroes. Covert operatives to a clandestine espionage agency now having their faces on every television, computer monitor, and smart phone all over the world certainly made things different for them. But her eyes were on the man who had spoken, Doctor Robert Bruce Banner. He was wearing plain clothes as well, along with a sports blazer that suggested a little towards his title and degrees in biology, chemistry, engineering, medicine, physiology, and nuclear physics. At a first glance, one would assume Doctor Bruce Banner a Professor at some university such as MIT, CalTech, or even Oxford. He had a little of the absent-minded professor personality going on for him, and always seemed a little nervous around crowds. Of course, she knew the truth. They all knew the truth.

"You're looking forward to this." Clint observed, tilting his head slightly so he could peer at the Doctor over the frames of his custom-made Oakleys.

"I haven't seen her since after the accident. She was the first person to help me and believed in me after the incident." The Doctor replied, rubbing the pads of his fingers of each hand together; a nervous habit, Romanoff noted, to contain his emotions. "When I needed anyone, I had her. Plus, she's family." Bruce offered a wane smile. "Nepotism aside, she's good at what she does. I've kept track, my way of being there for her in return when I couldn't do it in person."

They had gotten a lawyer.

Ever since the Battle of New York, the world had taken a nice long vacation from normality and had gone straight towards the Outer Limits, it seemed. Humanity wasn't alone, an alien race had tried to invade the planet while another alien led them while being fought off by his alien half-brother, and there were figures of incredible abilities that had come during Man's darkest day to wrought its finest hour. The cat had been let out of the bag, so to speak, and the collective human conscious was still reeling from the shock.

Of course the Avengers were the focal point of the entire mess. Some good, some not.

While the public in general, Americans typically, and New Yorkers especially, went ga-ga over the fact that superheroes actually existed, much larger organizations were… not so thrilled. Governments, organizations, businesses, syndicates, interest groups, and insurance companies were having a bit of a breakdown at the fact that such titans existed, that there were no real laws or means to deal with them. Politicians were reeling at the fact that some of the entities that they were just learning about had been hidden from their knowledge (rightfully so), news media was trying to dig for anything and everything to feed the angry mobs on the heroes de jure (which was a migraine), and militaries were either trying to find ways to assess them as threats while others were practically groveling at the chance of having them for a few days for clandestine strikes and operations. The whole damn thing was a nightmare.

Oh, and then there were the lawsuits. All two thousand plus of them.

Natasha was wanted for assault on three 'victims', never mind that Russian Lieutenant General Georgi Luchkov and his two associates were organized crime figures that had captured her and were about to torture her for information (while giving her information). Her face was all over the news, they had recognized her, and now there was an extradition order from the Russian Federation for her arrest. Assaulting a three-star Russian General while in a Russian court would go well… for them. Plus there was two personal injury lawsuits against her for the two thugs that had tied her to a chair and roughed her up. Never mind that they were corrupt Russian State Police Officers and had used physical interrogation methods against her; she had kicked their asses and now they were suing the Black Widow. There were easily a dozen suits and charges against her from previous visits on questionable persons, and a couple where people thought they were assaulted or actioned against by the Black Widow, true or not. Then there were the glory-hounds and publicity-seekers.

It didn't end there.

Clint was wanted for murder in Stuttgart, Germany for his part in the abduction, torture, and murder of a German physicist, who had no affiliations that the action could be bent towards looking like anything else other than an expert archer removing the eye of a man after killing him with a well-placed arrow to the heart. Clint was taking the whole affair badly, wanting to know how many people he had killed while under Loki's influence. It had been Natasha that had told him, the look of guilt on his face and no doubt eating his soul prompting her to tell him the truth. He wasn't being charged for the deaths of thirty-seven SHIELD Agents… at least not physically or legally. But on the inside…? The Battle was over, and the immediate clean-up had been done, Clint, Steve, Tony, and Thor throwing themselves into the efforts to move debris and pull out survivors in those hours and days after the battle. That had been but a temporary balm for a man who had been so horrifically used. There were other calls for extradition for 'death-by-arrows' in other parts of the world now that the knowledge of an expert covert archer was known. Some of them were actually him from previous missions with SHIELD, but it was making for an ugly mess.

It shouldn't have been any surprise that Anthony Edward 'Tony' Stark would have the most amount of lawsuits and claims against him, ranging from damages, to sexual misconduct, and even paternity suits. Romanoff was actually surprised that the bottomfeeders hadn't already come out of the woodworks with Tony when he announced himself as the Iron Man, having about four months of legal battles dealing with just that after Obadiah Stane's attack on Stark Industries and Tony publicly identifying himself, as well as after the incident at the Stark Expo involving one Ivan Vanko and two dozen military-grade assault drones. Being incredibly wealthy and very visible wasn't always what it was cracked out to be, the former personal (if clandestine) assistant to both Tony Stark and Virginia 'Pepper' Potts knew, getting a rather intimate view of those lives when she played Natalie Rushman to figure out the rash behaviors of Stark before they discovered he was dying of Pollodium poisoning. That hadn't been the worst assignment she had ever received, and the pictures of Tony Stark and Colonel James Rhodes duking it out in two Iron Man suits had been rather priceless.

But there was more.

Someone actually had the audacity to try and sue Thor as a false God. That had been a bit of a jawdropper for all of them when a summons agent from Norway had come to Stark Tower with legal paperwork for person(s) claiming themselves Thor, Son of Odin with a lawsuit asking the Asgardian to denounce his claim of paternity and Godhood. Thor hadn't taken that one particularly well, and Natasha got it a little bit; it seemed that Asgardians took such things as heredity in a much more serious fashion than 'Midgardians', not to mention that Thor was… well, an alien prince. Some puny mortal was asking a God to deny his throne and heritage just because they didn't want to believe that Thor indeed had fallen from the sky (she knew this thanks to reports from Darcy Lewis and Doctor Jane Foster, who had ran into the fallen God literally in New Mexico with a van) and wasn't what Wodinists (not 'Norse' believers) wanted to see in their beloved God of Thunder and… interestingly enough, the deity the day Thursday was named after. Romanoff had no idea how that had happened who knows how long ago, but evidently Thor got his own day of the week. The Asgardian wanted to move the start of the weekend to Thursday (as a joke) so people could drink in his honor (like people did on Fridays) once that fact had been told to him (along with the concept of weekends), and Tony had ran with it as a joke, renaming every day of the week after one of the Avengers, taking Friday for himself (now Starkday). The one day that had been left alone was Wednesday; it was named after Odin, and no one wanted to piss off his blonde-haired, Mjoliner-wielding princely son by disrespecting the All-Father.

Oh, there was the property damage suit filed against the Hulk. For practically the entirety of Harlem.

The Incredible Hulk had a humongous legal battle against him from the thirteen separate incidences in which Doctor Bruce Banner had unfortunately transformed into his monstrous alter ego. The sad part was that he was personally responsible for exactly one of them; when Doctor Banner decided to leap off of a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter after his capture by Major General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross to engage the creature known as the Abomination. It was the one and only time that Bruce embraced 'the other guy', to stop a creature much like himself from wrecking havoc upon upper New York City. The other twelve incidences occurred because Ross had been dead-intent to capture Banner for 'national security' as well to bury his involvement with the accident that created the Hulk; a recreation of Project: Rebirth that had gone terribly wrong when General Ross took matters into his own hands after Bruce refused to use human test subjects. Bruce had heroically held off the endeavor by volunteering himself, knowing that without himself the endeavor wouldn't succeed due to his great intelligence, but everything had gone wrong. Every change was because Ross had been using Special Forces and mercenaries to capture Banner, never figuring out that every time that he did so, the Hulk would emerge to protect his human alter ego, inciting the very thing he was supposedly trying to protect America from. No less than two hundred different claims were filed against the Hulk and his rampages.

Oh, the Avengers were getting sued, too. Couldn't sue an alien race for the destruction of Midtown, but the Avengers were free game.

Thus, the lawyer.

Tony had wanted to get what amounted to the most expensive lawyer in America with the best track record, but the attorney in question was a torts-oriented lawyer use to taking on hospitals and insurance companies, making malpractice suits and class-action lawsuits. Not to mention the fact that he was a bit of a glory hog that actually spent more time in front of a camera than working, shuffling off most of the work onto his younger, less-experienced legal team. Director Nicholas Samuel Fury had pulled up a dossier of multi-specialization lawyers, ones who tapped into multiple branches of laws to lead an effort to legally protect the Avengers, and pulled out about a dozen or so names of lawyers who had experiences in metahuman cases as well. They needed someone who knew business law, personal injury, torts, malpractice, civil, and legal. Such a lawyer would likely be in their sixties or seventies and probably not physically practicing law anymore except to run a team of lawyers. That wasn't exactly what they wanted either, some mouthpiece in love with their own voice and seen more often in front of a camera instead of a courtroom. They needed someone who could warm up a jury, warm up the press, and make titan-like companies sweat while looking out for the little guy, too. It was a hell of a tall order.

Surprisingly, one of the names jumped out when Bruce read the list and pointed out someone who just so happened to be his cousin and a practicing attorney.

Natasha already knew everything that there was to know about the potential hire, one Jennifer Susan Walters. The daughter of a Californian Sheriff and a nurse, Jennifer went to UCLA Law and graduated third in her year, receiving a very high score in her Bar Exam. She had been practicing law in San Bernadino County in California, doing personal injury claims as well as business suites, copyright law, a couple of malpractice suites, several civil spats, and even legal defense. She was one of the few 'broad spectrum' lawyers that Director Fury was able to comb out of the tens of thousands of lawyers in North America, and had several items in her jacket that were rather recommending. She was single, ran her own firm, did her own cases, didn't have a slue of people claiming sexual harassment or discrimination, and didn't have a bombshell of sins trolling all over social media. Plus, when Bruce had survived the accident that turned him into the Hulk, it was Jennifer Walters that had come to her cousins' aid, taking him in and helping him escape the silent dragnet that Ross and local police were using to capture the scientist. Surprisingly, SHIELD had no idea how the lawyer was able to smuggle Doctor Banner away from Los Angeles, knowing only that he resurfaced some six months later from an unfortunate incident involving human traffickers and a humanitarian effort down in Belize.

Tony was having her flown in from California to New York for a personal interview. On a Stark Industries Bombardier Challenger 300 if that wasn't hint enough.

Nat saw a small private craft coming in on approach, and she could sense that Bruce was happy; as happy as she had ever seen the normally-morose man. In his darkest days, he had this woman at his side despite how many times he had turned into the Hulk right after the accident (four times, actually). Jennifer hadn't left his side, and somehow kept a large green rage monster from being discovered and located by every police officer and soldier in Southern California. Well, she was the daughter of a Sheriff, so likely she knew some things. But someone who could say she had an Avenger as a family member but didn't blast it out left and right? That was someone who knew how to keep a lid on things while also being able to help out.

Thus the plane. Thus the interview.

"When's the last time you've seen her?" Barton asked, curious as he righted himself off the Porsche.

"After she got me out of California. So eight years." Neither Natasha nor Clint needed to be told that Bruce had purposefully avoided his cousin to protect her, returning the favor. "Every once in a while, I'd go to her firms' website or news articles to see how she's doing. Couldn't be near her, couldn't call her, but those moments did always make me smile." It was hard to picture Doctor Banner as being sentimental, but ever since he saw Jennifer's name on the list and practically begged to be the one to call her with a potential interview for the job they were about to offer her, he had been all smiles, lighter even. It was like Christmas for the man whom no one wanted to make angry or stressed. After all that had happened in New York, a little family reunion was… well, what the Doctor ordered.

The plane was landing on the tarmac and taxi'ing to the private hangers, where there was indeed one marked with Stark Industries' logo on the side in case anyone had any doubts. Even having spent a month as Tony and Pepper's personal assistant Natasha still got goosebumps at the thought of the wealth and capabilities of those two, able to put a government on their knees if they wanted; a First-World Government, at that. Tony was in the top-ten richest people on the planet bracket, and more visible than the Queen of England herself. He personally owned that plane that was heading towards them, the two pilots that she could see through the cockpit windows his employees. This wasn't a chartered flight, a timeshare plane shared over several businesses for the expense, or even really belonging to Stark Industries. It was Tony Stark's personal twenty-five million dollar jet, what he used to go to meetings, raise charity, impress people for business deals, or go to some exotic location for vacations. As a covert SHIELD Agent, Romanoff got coach tickets or smuggled herself onto one of the various military cargo aircraft throughout the world via 'Space A' or inserting herself into a small container with supplies. She watched as the plane stopped in front of the hanger, a motorized staircase taxi'ing to the plane's main cabin door as it was opened by a flight attendant (blonde female bombshell in a uniform, no surprises there) and out came a brunette woman in a smart business suit, an attache case, and a clutch purse over one shoulder.

"It's her." Bruce said in a voice barely louder than the Challenger's engines, but there was no mistaking the tone in his voice, the awe and wonder in it. This was a woman who had saved him from capture or a reign of destruction, who had risked everything for him when he was at his bleakest. She was family but so much more to Doctor Bruce Banner, and it showed. Natasha looked at the woman, hard to tell some details at a distance and at elevation, but she could tell that Jennifer Walters was taller than the flight attendant by several inches, and she knew that Tony didn't like hiring women who were either at his height or taller, Stark only being five-seven. Tall, Romanoff noted as the woman thanked the flight attendant and the captain before disembarking onto the motorized staircase, looking out and around as all people did when landing, getting a sense of her bearings. Tall, brunette, dresses well, pretty without emphasizing it, business suit suggests femininity without flaunting it. The woman was a 'real-deal' lawyer, one who buckled down and got in those billable hours and the work done, knuckling through her competition through litigation and oratory skills, not smiling and flirting her way through. A professional, the spy noted. That was good.

"Bruce!" The woman finally spotted the face she was looking for, practically bolting down the staircase and onto the tarmac to meet her cousin after eight long years of no contact. "Bruce! Oh my God!" Both Doctor and lawyer practically jumped into a hug that was actually pretty enduring to watch. Clint had a big old Iowa grin on his face, obviously touched at the sight. Well, he was the father to two adorable children who called Natasha 'Auntie', so she got it. She was a little surprised to see that Jennifer was actually taller than Bruce by a few inches, the Juris Doctor practically cradling his head. "God, I was so worried about you…" She pulled away from the hug to study him for a moment. "I'm glad you called. Started seeing you all over the news and… and I hoped…"

"Hey, it's okay." Natasha watched the scene for a brief moment before she moved over to Clint, bumping him in a friendly fashion so that they could move off and give Bruce and Jennifer their space.

She found herself walking away with a small smile on her face.

Jennifer Susan Walters, Esq., sat in the backseat of a blacked-out Porsche Cayenne as it was being driven by a redheaded woman that looked a little too familiar despite her white blouse and black slacks. The redhead was wearing a set of sunglasses with an extra-large frame that one generally saw on girls being fashionable or vogue… or if they wanted a good portion of their features covered while trying to disguise the fact that they were in fact disguising the fact. Her father had a name for those kinds of glasses; Battered Wives' Glasses, the kind that women in abusive relationships wore to disguise black or swollen eyes. Sheriff Morris Walters hadn't been stingy in teaching his only child about the facts of life, giving her advice and self-defense techniques, but otherwise letting her learn about life and herself on her own as well. Being an attorney who had to gauge silent juries just based upon clothes and the way one sat made her an expert at judging a book by its cover, and the first thought she had about the redhead was fighter. She looked completely at ease in her clothes, but they didn't suit her. Her shoulders were too square and ready, her eyes moved too much behind her glasses, and the woman had one hell of a poker face, expressive when needed, a mystery when not.

Jenn put two-and-two together; this was the Black Widow.

In the front passenger seat was a man with a serious athletic build and about the boldest eyes she had ever seen in a person. Not bold like those eyes were unfriendly or undressing her mentally. No, it was as if they were forever zeroing on whatever they were looking at with an intensity that was almost unnerving. The t-shirt and jeans combo made him look like an urban cowboy, but he wore boots that looked more combat related. He wasn't a soldier; no tattooes, the hair wasn't the normal style known as a 'high-and-tight', and she was pretty certain he was armed with a rather expensive model pistol. He screamed 'soldier' except for those eyes; those eyes didn't shift. Whatever they looked at? Got the full intensity of his attention. Like a laser.

So this was the Hawkeye.

It made sense. There had always been rumors and sightings of a strange green giant throughout the years that Jenn had always kept an ear out for, made easier with the internet and social media. When there had been an odd tale in Rio de Janiero more than a year ago about a bottling plant being shutdown due to massive internal damages with no explosion or any other explanation, Jenn was pretty damn sure someone had found Bruce. Weeks later, there were YouTube videos of an incident at Culver University that didn't make the media, and Jenn had learned long ago what a cover-up look like. She had seen the poor quality video from a cell phone of something large and green, and she had known Bruce was in danger, that the Army was after him once more, that Ross was after him once more. She had gotten some legal paperwork involved, filing injunctions and subpoenas to hamper his actions and put to light the truth in hopes that some reporter or judge would wake up and smell the illegal activities. But when the attack on Harlem occurred, when a large creature called the Abomination was rampaging its way through upper New York City, she heard the rumors that a large green figure had stopped him and defeated him. Jenn knew that Bruce had fought off that monster for the sake of the people. He hadn't come to her because he didn't want to put her in danger, but she wouldn't have cared; she would have put him up right in her home if he showed up right on her doorstep.

Then there had been the Attack on New York.

May 11th had been a terrible day, the day Mankind learned quite horrifically it wasn't alone in the universe by means of an alien invasion on New York City itself. Yet in its darkest day had come its finest hour; no less than six God-like people had stepped up to appear in front of the wake of destruction to hold the line, to stem the tide, and to force the invaders back to whatever corner of the universe they happened to hail from. In a day of calamity and infamy, five men and one woman stood tall and strong to defend Earth and Man, proving themselves to the entire world their resolve. Jenn, like billions of others, had watched the 'special edition' updates as the attack occurred, seeing alien… things flying out of a hole in the sky while people scattered and fled for their lives. She had seen the Iron Man take to the skies to fight, the legendary Captain America on the streets protecting people, a literal God smashing through the creatures with a mythical hammer, a man with a bow and impeccable aim, a woman who tore through the ranks with her bare hands.

And she saw her cousin in his absolute full terrible glory, like a living wrecking ball, smashing the largest of the creatures with his green meaty fists.

Jenn turned to look at the man who shared the backseat with her, to see Bruce. She could see the guilt and sadness behind those eyes, that terrible burden on his shoulders. To have so much strength, so much capability, and choose not to use it for the noblest of reasons? He could have waged wars against terrorism and governments, to have become some green-skinned monster, an unstoppable creature of rage and retribution. But she knew better, she knew the truth. She had seen it in the eyes of both Bruce and the Hulk, the pain that they both suffered. No one else but her knew why the Incredible Hulk was such a towering inferno of rage and destruction, why when Ross had so stupidly used the Super Soldier Serum and gamma radiation on her cousin, why it had created a monster. Bruce had known through the notes of Doctor Abraham Erkstein that the serum exasperated everything about its subject, not just their physical prowess. It would also exasperate the subjects' most desired trait… as well as its darkest demon. General Ross had wanted to use human test subjects, volunteer soldiers to become the next Captain America. But Bruce hadn't been interested in making a legion of super soldiers; he wanted to re-create the man who was the epitome of the Golden Age Hero, a champion of freedom and justice, to return an icon and ideal for the people to follow. Her cousin had insisted on psychological testing on the subjects and intentionally failed every one of them with a maze of standards that the Son of God likely wouldn't have met, and intentionally so. Herr Lieutenant General Johann Schmidt had been created through a military decision to embolden Nazi forces with der Ubermeschen, but had gotten Rot Schroder instead; the Red Skull. Bruce was preventing a tragedy that General Ross was so stupidly trying to create with vision of perfect soldiers; that old, stupid, wasteful dream. Ross wanted killing machines.

He certainly got his wish.

Bruce had been abused as a child, that Jenn knew all too well. Doctor Brian William Banner had been a sick man, an angry drunk who would beat both his wife and his only child in jealous rages. Jenn's mother, Elaine, hadn't know of that whenever Jenn visited her five-year older cousin. For some reason, Uncle Brian had always kept his temper on a leash whenever his niece was around, and Bruce had capitalized on that, the young Jenn not knowing at first what was going on, only knowing that Bruce (who, like all young children did with their older family relations, Jenn saw him as a hero) liked having her over. Bruce was already beginning to show off his vast intellect, and Jenn read as much as he did, spending time with her cousin in the public library or a book store. Then, one night, for a reason Jenn had never been told or explained to, her Uncle had murdered her Aunt in a drunken rage, sending him to prison and Bruce to his Aunt Elaine and Uncle Morris to be raised. Bruce had been a very traumatized eleven-year old child, and Jenn, only six, had done the only thing she knew to do to help her older cousin; by being his friend and hugging him whenever he looked like he needed it. He lived with them until he was fifteen years old, advancing through school at a rapid age and getting a full-ride scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at a young age. While Jenn had been sad to see Bruce leave, she was also proud of him too, for becoming such a success story. He earned his first degree in biochemstry at nineteen, and Jenn had attended his graduation. She attended his second graduation, this time nuclear physics, when he was twenty-three and she about to enter college herself to get her law degree from UCLA. They had always been close, sharing the details of their lives together, being there for one another. They might have been cousins by blood, but in reality they were much more like brother and sister.

But when Doctor Bruce Banner had thwarted General Ross's plan into introducing a human test subject with or without his approval by strapping himself to the experiments' chamber so that he wouldn't potentially harm another person, the Super Soldier Serum had awoken the thing living inside of him that had endured his fathers' raging abuse, bringing out the monster that had lived within.

The Hulk had been born.

"Hey." Jenn looked to Bruce, getting his attention as they drove closer to Manhattan. She could already see the many indications of clean-up and reconstruction in Midtown, what was shown on the news so soon after the Attack. Skycranes dotted the city skyline, and there was still visible damage to be seen even from the Brooklyn Bridge. "You've been eating right, haven't you? You look like you're putting in some long hours."

"Doing a lot of coordination and planning for the reconstruction." Her cousin replied, looking a little sheepish. "Can't… really go out there and risk doing a lot of physical labor, so instead I'm working on projects and getting the pieces to fit so that the people get where their needed, getting the names of those found to their loved ones. Good work." That was her Bruce; a giving soul with such a heavy burden. "Could probably take care of myself a little better, but with families still working on being together, others who have holes and gaps because of the Chitauri…" He stopped talking, and the tension in his face said it all. She knew that look.

"You're helping. You're helping them, and that helps you." Jenn took Bruce's hand into her own and gave it a squeeze. "I'll make sure you're getting the food and sleep you need. You're more effective that way. I don't want you grumpy; nobody likes it when you're grumpy." That had the man named Clint Barton snort from the front seat, but Bruce had a lazy smile on his face from a memory long ago.

"God, how long ago was that? When you tried barbecuing fish right on the grill without wrapping it in aluminum foil first?" The physicist asked, his smirk growing. "People cook on a grill, Jenn; not cook the grill itself."

"Hey, I was nine! And a little bit of a pyro." That had Bruce chuckling, and for a brief moment, he wasn't a man burdened with grief and rage, with a three-day old shadow and looking as if he had been wearing the same clothes for at least two days in a row. For a moment, he was the Bruce from before; shy, huge nerd, smart as hell, and absolutely thirsty to solve problems everyone claimed to be unsolvable, thrilling at the intellectual challenge. Jenn could close her eyes and picture that night, the night both of their lives changed forever. A soggy Bruce standing at her front door, soaked to the bone and a fear in his eyes she hadn't seen since she was a child, utterly terrified of himself. That night haunted her dreams still to this day. "I did learn how to grill fish properly, I'll have you know. Without catching the grill on fire." The archer up front was trying not to chuckle out loud but failing. "Wait, can you do the whistle?"

"What whistle?" Clint Barton asked, turning enough to look at her as they began to enter into Manhattan. Jenn smirked at Bruce for a moment as she did a four-tone bar that came from a movie not even two months old. Hawkeye's green eyes just bored into her with an even greater intensity with the identity of the song she was suggesting that involved an archer in a movie. "I am not whistling that fucking song." The man turned in a huff as Bruce bit at a knuckle to keep from laughing out loud at the reference. "Fuck, Tony's going to hear about this and change everyone's ring tone to that fucking song."

"Awww… may the odds be ever in your favor." Natasha was cracking up in the drivers' seat with Jenn's delivery as her cousin couldn't hold back anymore, laughing hard and slapping his own leg. God, it's so good to see him smile like that, Jenn thought as she looked at Bruce, seeing that burden forgotten for just one precious moment. She might have teased the world's deadliest archer by referencing him to The Hunger Games and Katness Everdeen, but to see Bruce smile, to hear him laugh?

It was worth it.

Author's Note: I took a great deal of Earth-616 and put it into the MCU, including canon middle names and backgrounds. The one thing I changed was the fact that Doctor Bruce Banner went to live with his Aunt Elaine and Uncle Morris Walters instead of Susan Banner-Drake, like in the comics, so that Bruce and Jenn could be closer in a familial way. The name of the man who was to torture Natasha in the Avengers movie is correct according to the credits, and his rank based off the characters' costume. If there is a big canon diverg, it will likely be Clint Barton's Earth-616 history. It's… kinda silly.

I make a couple references to the first Hulk movie with Eric Bana, Jennifer Connolly, and… ugh, Nick Nolte. The most specific one was the Doctors-Without-Borders scene where Eric utters the famous quote from the television show ("Don't make me angry; you wouldn't like me when I'm angry"), as well as the fact that the Army did try to capture/kill Bruce Banner. While it was Sam Elliott that played General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross in the first movie, William Hurt took over for the second one and then later on a Secretary Ross for Captain America: Civil War. I might bring up the idiocy of having a man who created the Hulk being in charge of keeping a lid on the Avengers due to their destructive nature later on.

Both Clint and Bruce had abusive fathers in the comics, and both of their families were torn apart by that abuse (Bruce's father did in fact kill his mother, and I believe Clint's parents died in a car crash caused by his fathers' anger). For Doctor Brian Banner's middle name, I gave him the first name of the actor who played Doctor David Banner from The Incredible Hulk television show from the 70's, Bill Bixby.

The Hunger Games came out on March 23, 2012, while the Avengers came out on May 4 of the same year. I make the 'dates' for the Avengers' movie co-inside with its release, and the Attack happens a week after Loki appears on Midgard/Earth.

Jennifer Walters (Esq.) is somewhat based off of her Earth-616 character, minus the events enacted by Nicholas Trask that ended up being responsible for her being shot and receiving a blood transfusion from her cousin. That hasn't happened. Jenn is a Mk. I Human Being.

I know what you're thinking with that previous sentence there, dear reader. Just keep reading, true believer.