"I can go in from ground level. A drop will take too long," Natasha informed him steadily, her finger tracing the digital map in front of them. It would buy some time as a distraction, if nothing else.

"Not to mention it might kill you," Coulson answered drily. He did not look at her. He did not need to in order to see her grim perseverance. She had had the most encounters with the Other Guy than any of the rest of the Team. Pre-Midtown interactions, anyway. To willingly put herself back into harm's way reaffirmed her dedication to that same team as far as he understood her, which was better than most.

So despite her willingness to play distraction, it pleased him to say, "It won't be necessary, Natasha."

On any other day the Hulk might have been more manageable (as if they ever had an 'any other day'.)

Something in the scientist had changed since New York. Even Banner had been calmer in his day to day. Steve suggested it might be working in a group he trusted not to push him past his comfort zone, to do whatever it took to stop the Other Guy, without confusing the character of the two. Natasha was more certain it had something to do with Stark physically and verbally prodding Banner until he had a modicum of resistance to every day annoyances. Coulson conveyed without so many words that he thought the ideas overlapped.

But Tony was not here, having retreated into his shell some weeks ago after shawerma, after Thor had corralled Loki home. Stark was doing his damnedest to avoid news and any type of media coverage, sinking so far into privacy and work that even SHIELD had to make an effort to stay in contact with the diva.

Each of the team had become more isolated, withdrawing from the limelight for much needed rest, Banner included, almost as if the Avengers were hibernating until needed again. Even had they been on hand, none of them besides Thor had ever taken on the Hulk one-on-one, and contact had not been made with Asgard since the two princes had departed. Even Tony, had he not been hiding in Malibu, would have been hard pressed to handle Banner's bad side. Given that Hawkeye was still en route with a concoction strong enough to sedate the Hulk, and that they were down to one usable member of their full unit, they had been pressed to do anything but contain the situation.

Natasha regarded her former handler with a subdued curiosity as he relayed the command, not yet privy to their back up plan. Given that a nine-foot tall green giant was currently terrorizing part of the city, her raised eyebrow was not without merit. The Other Guy might have done little more than crush a few vehicles for the time being, but he was not known to be predictable, his tendencies swinging more to the smash and dash variety.

Coulson shrugged his free arm, releasing his radio from its secured position and tucked the device back into his pocket. "We have a first-time consultant on the way. This is their shakedown, if you will. Hill has ordered that we withdraw from this position for further cover."

"A first run?" Natasha asked. So SHIELD had called for backup, or specifically, Coulson had called for backup. There were precedents in seeking help outside of the organization, of course. Exceptional cases called for unorthodox measures.

"Not first," he said.

Second, she thought and gave a measured frown. She wondered who their backup had pissed off to get a contract to try and handle the Hulk. The assassin looked as if she was ready to disagree with the order, or at least have it clarified, but Coulson looked placid, and she wanted to see how this would play out exactly. They both knew that leaving would jeopardize what little buffer zone was left between their raging colleague and the rest of downtown. Before she could say anything, though, her head turned to the street behind them, eyes narrowing.

Coulson's followed her instincts and saw what had caught her attention- a petite young woman barreling toward them at an impressive speed, any sound of her approach lost to Banner's cacophony. Her movements were fluid and coordinated, and her eyes showed no discomfort at the sounds of destruction just beyond them. Arms thrown behind her, she moved with a youthful grace that rather reminded him of the woman standing next to him, though Natasha wondered at what might motivate someone to wear a pink wig. Costume fetish?

Then again, Spiderman.

Both SHIELD agents turned to regard the young woman as she slowed to a stop before them, bowing respectively from her hips.

"How do you do?" she asked, her accent thick. The words were unpracticed and rough, but grammatically perfect. She did not even appear to be out of breath. As she rose, she reached toward her hip, and the hair on the back of Natasha's neck rose with history and experience. She wondered briefly if they had made a mistake, but then the girl's gloved hand came forward and there concern was for nothing. She was not holding a gun, but a tightly bound scroll that looked like it had come from a souvenir store in Little China. Her own fingers relaxed.

"I'm ready," she added, as if her presence and the oddly presented wall art were enough to make her suitable for facing Banner's alter ego. "The target is only a few hundred meters away, yes?" Her eyes were already moving beyond them, scanning rapidly for the Big Guy.

"Coulson," Natasha preempted. Her tone was controlled, and it was only their years together that conveyed to him what she felt was a warranted disbelief. Critical eyes took in the arrival's appearance, who had finally caught on to their hesitation. The young woman barely had any muscle mass, obvious due to the sleeveless red top she wore. Was she trying to make herself a target in that color? She might be fine in a street fight, and Natasha knew not to underestimate someone based on size or clothing options, but this wasn't a scrap. This was a nearly mindless behemoth. There was not even any tech on her person, only a shirt and a flimsy skirt over a pair of running tights, nothing to prevent her from being completely crushed the moment she was within arm's reach.

Her former handler said nothing, but turned his carefully passive expression to the newcomer. "You're the consultant?" he asked carefully. She turned two candy-bright green eyes on him and smiled a tolerant smirk.

"My village sold this contract, yes. If you're concerned about my abilities, I suggest you contact your resources mangerner- mangerner? Magne- the person who makes people meet."

She was still smiling, but the longer Natasha regarded her the more she came to realize how the newcomer was attempting to hide her irritation. "I have a job to do and have already wasted more time than I should have." Natasha caught the subtle motion of the young woman's black-gloved thumb slip under the binding of the sealed scroll. "It should only be a few minutes," she added, inclining her head respectfully.

Natasha's mouth opened to further question the young woman. She was feeling more agreeable to the situation simply based on her confidence, but she was far from satisfied. What was her name? What did she mean by Village? She stopped short though at Coulson's nod. She trusted him, at least.

Neither she nor Coulson could have stopped her, regardless, as she leaped onto the SUV they had been standing behind and immediately flipped forward again, sprinting as she landed. She manipulated the scroll as she ran, not breaking her speed. By the time she turned the corner, a block away, two arms' length of the paper had been unbound.

"Please explain to me that we did not just allow a rave-ready civilian to run to her death," Natasha finally said mildly, covering her unease.

Her tone said more than her words, and Coulson only answered, "I didn't see any glow sticks," as he started moving again. Reaching into the vehicle, he opened a thick black briefcase, exposing a built-in laptop and battery. In step with his train of thought, she opened up her own communication device and called, "This is Agent Romanov. Get us into CCTV, stat."

The computer screen flared to life, the execution file opened, and for a moment all was snowy static until the city cameras became their eyes. Banner was there, or rather, the Other Guy was there. His destruction had slowed almost to the point that it seemed he was waiting for something. Whether or not he was becoming more tolerant of the transformation and perhaps less irate, which Natasha was not optimistic enough to hope for, or whether he could hear the consultant approaching, their wait would soon be over.

It had been a long time since Sakura had been so far away from Konoha. Or rather, perhaps this was the farthest she had ever been. Wave Country had been over a decade ago, and she had made so many trips to Sand Village since becoming a jounin that the three-day trip seemed routine. This was something else entirely.

It was the first time she had been on a ship for days and days with nothing but the ocean to surround her and the stars to blanket her. Granted, the ship had been a nice one, with interesting people and delicious food, but it had delivered her to a city that was a country unto itself. The buildings were bigger than trees and as large as the forests of Konoha while familiarities were as rare as pearls. New York City was the largest metropolis she had ever seen, and learning to navigate it and its rapid culture had been one of the harder parts of this mission.

No mission was ever simple, even escorts were tangled with political implication, both for her and the buyer of the contract, but this particular task was one that had stretched even her technical acumen.

The world around them was changing, had been changing for years as shinobi grew more numerous and came more and more into conflict with each other. The end of the Great War had seen the immediate crisis averted, but not before the rest of the world had been alerted to their presence. "With bijuudama exploding left and right, who wouldn't notice?" Sakura thought with emotion that she quickly tamped. She was too resigned to be cynical and too in love with her village to be resentful. In the end, hidden villages had poured so much effort into defeating Obito and Uchiha Madara that they had lost their greatest asset- anonymity.

It had only taken the civilians of the world, for all their incompetence at harnessing chakra or honing their own bodies, days to uncover their hiding places. Then the messengers had come, as bold as brass to the door of the Hidden Leaf Village despite all of their claims of discretion and honorable intent, and had demanded entrance and answers.

The last great effort of the combined Ninja Army had been to pool their financial resources to buy silence- privacy. No one could hope to exploit them against their will. Ninja were too powerful to be intimidated by civilian means on an individual level, but beyond the momentary stay? They knew too little of the outside world to say for certain that they could protect themselves indefinitely, and they knew too much of man's nature feel safe for very long on their meager purchase.

So the village needed money, and the village needed privacy. Money was the lesser of their problems, as it had always been possible to sell labor or assassinations to a willing bidder. Anonymity was harder. Secrets and power were a shared currency, in or out of the villages, apparently, and learning of a stash of men and women with the power to tear mountains asunder with wind, or lightning, or their bare fists had garnered another kind of attention.

On the order of the Rokudaime, they had branched out, sought countries and individuals beyond their mainstays with wealth that could match their needs, and maybe find an answer to the other, lingering problem. The ethics or whether or not they should or should not sell their skills to a wider audience who did not share their culture was a topic Sakura squashed quickly- nothing had changed. This was what her people had done since before she had become a ninja, for generations even. That they sold their skills to outsiders only changed the flow of cash. It did not change them.

So she was the latest link in a chain of missions trying to support her village. Whenever word of a new, technologically-apt, possibility appeared, she went closer to the source, and farther from home. She had been in this gigantic city for a few weeks when this opportunity had presented itself.

She had seen the green man on the news before, in highlight reels and "Who is he?" segments, usually in concert with another group of masked characters. She had seen old footage of his propensity for destruction and had picked through enough of the local news to realize that he was still something of a hero, despite whatever negative side effects came with the effort. The power he showed, though, had made her rethink the position of civilians as useless when it came to fighting. He was no nin, not with his artless brute strength, but he proved that there might something to them, after all, especially when she saw the rest of the group who were always shown on screen with him.

She had contacted the Hokage and expressed an interest in contacting them. Whatever organization could back a group with their level of firepower might have other interesting resources, or at least might be able to direct her to someone who could. If they would be willing to grant her an audience… If she could just get close to them…!

She might have even taken the task on without money had there not been a more dire need. Each time before, the beast man's caretakers had eventually figured out how to have him rescinded, but not before causing a lot of damage along the way. Feelers had been put out, and a tentative agreement had been reached. If his handlers, his caretakers, ever needed Konoha's help, they would call. Sakura was not sure what the Council had done to convince them, but contracts had been drawn up, and the agreement had been reached.

Now the green man's keepers, her employer, had finally contacted her. There had been little advanced warning, especially since she had seen his latest rampage on the news and come running. The chain away from home kept getting longer, but she saw hope in the distance.

All of the information for the contract had been filtered from Konoha on a long-distance call that had cost her half of her stipend for the month. While she felt nothing but confident in her ability to accomplish her task, she still did not know the faces of her employers. The man with the shoulder sling and the beautiful, severe woman were the first contacts she had encountered face-to-face as a matter of following hastily shared coordinates, and the sound of destruction. Only her experience-given instincts and their expectation at her presence had confirmed that she was in the right place. Of course, she couldn't let her confusion or anxiety show. She had to put on a strong face for the village in case this turned out to be their best chance at re-establishing their clandestine culture.

She had to be smart and strong. She had to be respectful and savvy. Even if, like many of the other clients she had encountered, they seemed to want to discount her at first sight.

She had to be perfect.

"So it was best to just greet them and move onto the target," she reconciled silently. Invariably, clients were always satisfied with her work and gracious at the end of the day. For now, though, there was no getting around being someone with a small frame and pink hair.

The target was not hard to find, the ao aitsu. He heard her as soon as she turned the corner, his eyes narrowing even with the stark distance between them. She paused for a moment, the open and rolled ends of the scroll held tightly between her hands. He huffed like a bull, muscle rippling beneath his green skin, and it really was green- not just a mistake from the news or television.

Green was different.

Beyond the verdant shade of his hide, he looked similar to the curse-sealed nin she had seen many years previous and so was she inclined to classify him. Hyperfunctioning proportional myomegaly, indicating an increased metabolism and increased capability for force. Especially in his upper torso, while his legs were comparatively thin. They were still thicker than her entire torso, but long, lengthy fibers would imply speed. So he was fast and strong. She could well believe the old news footage of destruction. Still, he had no horns growing from his head or wings sprouting from his back. There were only four appendages, not eight.

"Hmm," she hummed without fear, her curiosity whetted. If he had been a nin of any kind, she might have worried, but she had seen the news reports and had further intel from her employer. There was no increased intelligence in addition to his increased physicality. Moreover, he had yet to speak or indicate that he was anything other than a big, beastly creature. His own colleagues considered him not much more than an animal in this state; a powerful, fast animal whose defensive and offensive abilities outstripped their own, but an animal nonetheless. She tried not to feel too calm about the situation. Lions and bears were still dangerous in their way.

Supposedly beneath his curse was a brilliant and humane scientist. For that reason, the target was not to be terminated, only incapacitated. Killing would have been easier on many levels, but Konoha had insisted they could get the job done. Their reputation was riding on her, which gave her more anxiety than the man before her.

She frowned as she stepped forward, dark boots landing heavily enough on the pavement to alert him to her presence. A man he might have been, but she could not sympathize with such self-inflicted conditions.

She remembered blood-red eyes with spinning pupils and frowned.

Power for power's sake was an ethic she had rejected as a child, already well aware of the consequences of such pursuits. Perhaps this man would one day know just how horrible his own pursuit had been, if he didn't already. Until then, her village could benefit from the revenue brought on by his carelessness.

He turned to face her fully, baring his teeth as she approached, and he did not run. As she closed the distance between them, she took the barrel of the scroll into her mouth, her hands sealing quickly. Chakra surged through her fingertips and then into the paper as she secured her grip on the scroll once more. Then she lowered it to her side.

"Oi!" she called to him, holding the partially unrolled paper. His head reared back, eyes not losing sight of her and he roared. They were still some meters apart and she could feel the gust from his lungs, but he made no move to engage her. Posturing?

"Your… friends are concerned about you, but also a little afraid. Would you please stop breaking things?" she called and relaxed her shoulders and posture, trying to appear as unthreatening as possible. If he had any of the same thoughts as his compatriots under that transformation, then that should not be difficult.

Sakura knew her capabilities, her strengths, and she was not afraid to engage him. She also knew that she was being watched. It was a balancing act, performing for new clients. If she revealed too much, especially without trust, then they might feel threatened and contact another village or worse. If she did not do enough she risked losing the contract altogether to dissatisfaction.

"Carrot first," she told herself, relaxing further.

She cleared her throat and called, "So? What will you do?" The green man answered when he reached out to an overturned automobile and grabbed its roof, breaking through its window like disturbing dust. Without any perceivable effort, he lifted the car and slammed it back down again, shoving it towards her and disturbing several other vehicles with the motion. It made a horrendous racket as it skipped across the paved street, but Sakura only lifted her boot and caught its bumper. It shuddered to a stop and she frowned.

It was not an outright attack, but it was aggressive. More posturing? Why?

The questions ceased to have meaning as two of the other vehicles around him, in an impressively delayed display of Murphy's Law, suddenly blared their programming at the disturbance. Lights flashed, horns grieved, and the green man moved.

He was nearly on her before she realized that he had reacted badly to the noise, and Sakura knew she had let her guard down too far. Knuckles and fingers were breathing against her chest when she slipped away on chakra-laden feet.

He was tall enough that a quick dip beneath his punch was all it took to slip beneath his arms and then behind him. She put some distance between them, taking note of his musculature as she did so. Though the skin was green, he was still definitely human. When she turned back to estimate the distance between them and the reaction time to process her disappearance, she was surprised to see he was already pursuing her.

The ground thundered beneath his feet, all raw power and no control, and when she put obstacles in his way like vehicles or street lights, he barreled through them without concern, without pain, and without slowing.

"Guess he doesn't want to stop breaking things," she thought, with a grim sort of gratification.

The dossier on the green beast had said he transformed as a reaction to stress, and he rarely transformed back without exhausting himself. Knowing that, and knowing the little she did about the curse real and those who had transformed under its effects, she had prepared for the possibility that the man beneath the green might not be able to change back without intervention. It was time for the show.

She darted past a street sign and quickly grasped it with her left hand. One hop later her momentum pulled her back to her oncoming pursuer, and his unsuspecting face caught the full flat of her boot. There was chakra behind the touch, too, and she finally achieved the distance she had been wanting. He rolled feet over his head and continued skidding as she pulled herself to her feet.

She needed to finish prepping the scroll, but she would have to get in close again to apply its contents. With that thought cemented, she took it again without hesitation as he began to right himself, slightly dazed from the kick. This was not a full exhibition for her client, otherwise she might have taken her time, but one thing she knew is that all of her former employers wanted the job done as quickly as possible.

She zigzagged, trying to confuse the limited intelligence behind his watchful eyes, but his gaze no longer watched her like possible prey. She was a challenge now.

She leaped, covering several meters to land at his side, but he was already facing her again, the haze gone. Sakura continued running, monitoring his ability to keep up with her speed. It made sense that he would be so fast if all he had to do was turn a few degrees at a central point while she was traveling the circumference around him. Quickly, she threw the scroll high into the air, her eyes still on him. He glanced to it for a moment, perceived no threat, and then turned his eyes back to his would-be assailant.

Three more of her were running in a tight line around him, each catching an identical scroll from the air. Then without a word each girl broke off at a cardinal point, surrounding him in a small square. Sakura and her bunshin staggered their stances. Alternating their approaches, each charged him. It would be over as soon as she could apply the seal that would effectively contain him until his rage subsided or further action was necessary.

She was almost upon him, charging from the back when he whirled on her like a dervish, once more proving his speed and instincts. His hand snapped closed around her ribs. Sakura was so startled that it only took a squeeze for the other bunshin to dissipate into nothing. He had beaten her shell game, with no chakra and without seeing the copies made. Had he sensed her?

The resulting squeeze felt like an angry elephant had decided to sit on her and then grind her into the ground. She cried out despite herself as he pulled her in, face-to-face, teeth bared. For a horrible moment she had the clearest understanding that he was going to bite her head off like in some deplorable fairy tale about trolls and goblins.

The roar that bellowed into her face did nothing to assuage that concern, but by that time she had gathered her wits again. She still had a free hand that was not holding the scroll. It only took a split second to clock her captor with a scared punch. It was enough force to ensure that she was serious without devastating his bones. He reeled backward, dropping her as he fell, and she took a full breath as she dropped to the ground, instinctively checking her ribs. The length of them felt strained, and bruised for sure, but not fractured.

Chastised and smarting, she rearranged her grip on the scroll as the beast man rolled onto his feet again, his face full of hateful anger once more, but completely unmarred. He charged to continue their duel. Fingers pulled the binding characters from the scroll with another surge of chakra and then promptly dropped the useless paper. Another hand plucked a smoke bomb from her pouch and tossed it at his feet. It exploded, smoldering upward and covering the hulking body. He jumped upward to be clear of the debris, but Sakura was already there.

Her black fist, covered in a writhing mass of sealing agents pressed lightly against his forehead as she called, "Sealing technique!" She pressed off of his descending body and landed a moment later, crouched. Behind her a guttural cry heightened in pitch and volume to sounding almost normal. She frowned because this was never a painless process. As she glanced over her shoulder, she saw the body of a naked, not-green man careening to the street.

The seal had worked, but even the effort had been more than she had anticipated. Her ribs had given up a sharp ache for a dull throbbing. The green man had not responded to her strikes as most enemies would have, and the realization made her frown. Her client had not exaggerated his endurance.

Gathering her breath, and healing the bruising to her body before it could swell, she stood carefully and then approached the subject. Sakura kneeled next to him, safe in the knowledge that the sealing had obviously worked. He was older than she, perhaps Kakashi's age, with pepper-speckled dark hair and a dusting of chin scruff. He looked… tired.

She reached a single finger forward to his forehead and channeled a minute amount of chakra. The black seal writhed once more under her finger as she anchored it and drew it across his face, down his neck to the back of his shoulder. When she removed her touch the characters settled down into a nice, inky tableau.

His vitals felt strong, but he was clearly exhausted. She sighed, feeling some pity for the man. How much harder was it for non-ninja to subject themselves to forces they could not control? There was no precedent for this kind of action amongst civilians, not that she knew of, anyway. Her pity turned to annoyance all over again. Power for power's sake…

Sakura stood as a large, black vehicle turned onto the street. It did not have the usual red and blue lights of many like it, but it moved with authority and without hesitation to their location.

The man with the injured shoulder climbed out of the back seat- not driving, so in authority, it seemed. The woman from before stood beside him, just slightly behind. Just next to her was a tall, masked man, a white star embroidered on his chest. He stared at her and the sleeping man with concern in sharp, blue eyes.

"Impressive work," the first man spoke soberly, reaching out a hand to her. "Very expedient." Sakura took it, respecting their custom, and allowed her hand to be grasped. She could not help but smile at his satisfaction, wondering if she could count this as a job well done. In return she received a small, perfunctory smile and thought instantly of Kakashi. "I'm Agent Phil Coulson," he shared, and she wondered what kind of secrets laid behind his unpresuming expression.

"Haruno Sakura," she said, while something about his calm, uninterested manner made her think that he already knew her name. Perhaps more. How much had Konoha told him about her?

"Is he all right?" the woman from before asked, facing her again. Sakura turned, glad to be able to speak about the contract and nodded. She had the strong impression that there always something serious in the woman's manner.

"His vitals are good and there doesn't seem to be any damage to his brain or circulatory systems. I think he's just tired. Transformations like these take much out of the body."

That statement grabbed Coulson's interest, and his smile fell away, "You know about such transformations?"

Despite her anxiety about striking a proper balance of shared information, she felt no reason to hide the truth about this, and so she nodded. "We've seen something similar to this before where I'm from." The woman and Coulson exchanged silent glances, exchanging a wealth of communication in flat eyes. Then she smiled and stuck out her hand to greet Sakura as well.

"Natasha Romanov."

"A pleasure."

"Captain America," the third member of their party added from Sakura's side. She glanced back to see another blue-gloved hand extended to her. Occupying most of his right shoulder was the naked man, who had been wrapped in something like a robe. Sakura shook his hand as well.

"Miss Haruno, we'd like to speak with you a bit longer, if you wouldn't mind. It's very interesting to us these techniques. Plus we'll need you to give us the actual details of the procedure you accomplished."

She regarded Coulson for another moment, then nodded. If she was going to get succeed, she needed to cooperate as much as possible. Konoha's sealing style, or in this Kakashi's sealing style, was proprietary information, of course, and how to recreate such important things, she would not divulge. But… She took a glance at the sleeping man, who only minutes before had been trying to crush the life out of her, and thought that it might be nice to see him awake and as humane as they claimed.