A/N: This is my first Avengers fanfic. I just couldn't get it out of my head! I am using a little creative freedom with the original established story line for the Hulk. Nothing major, so no worries there. I hope you enjoy and please review :)

It wasn't the fact that Tony came crashing into the lab so loudly and unexpectedly that caused Bruce Banner to drop his coffee mug full of piping hot coffee, but rather that he came crashing into the lab with a woman in tow. In the months that Bruce had been living at Stark tower Tony had adhered to his strict "No girls allowed" rule in the lab that the Sci-bros (Tony coined the phrase) shared, even barring Pepper from the room. Now that he had broken that rule, Bruce was beginning to see why it was in place to begin with.

Half-heartedly attempting to clean off the newly formed coffee stain on his thigh, Bruce came around the table to meet the woman. "Um…Hello, I am Bruce," he said evenly, which was a striking contrast to the other two in the room.

The girl and Tony were glaring at each other, clearly attempting to face off in a duel of wits, or maybe to pull each other's hair. Knowing Tony, either was possible. Bruce watched them for a few moments, waiting patiently for an introduction, or at least an explanation.

It was Tony who finally broke the silence. "Bruce, meet my hillbilly niece, Perry Stark." Bruce gave her an awkward nod, to which she replied with a polite smile, before returning her eye-daggers to the side of Tony's head. "Perry, you already know everything about my colleagues, I trust you can figure this one out on your own."

Niece, interesting. That explained the resemblance between the two. Perry was an average height, with shoulder length dark hair and brown eyes. She was very pretty, Bruce noted, and exuded a sort of cocky air, much like Tony himself. Casting a glance down, he couldn't help but to notice that she was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals shirt, snug across the chest, and cut-off shorts that showed off her defined legs. Staring at her thighs, he wondered if she was a runner or maybe she was more into yoga…

Tony cleared his throat loudly, breaking Bruce out of his thoughts. The doctor blushed and drew his eyes away from Perry and saw that Tony was giving him a bemused smirk.

"Thanks to some 'self-guided exploration' of S.H.I.E.L.D. records, Nick Fury has sentenced my dear niece to imprisonment in Stark tower," said Tony.

"You hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.?" asked Bruce, his eyes wide in amazement. "You really are related to Tony."

Perry gave him a smug look, allowing her eyes to drop slowly to where his top buttons were open giving her a glimpse his hairy chest. Bruce felt his mouth go suddenly dry and he desperately turned his gaze away to anything but her.

"Nick Fury is so wrapped up in the omnipotence of his position, I figured spreading the wealth of knowledge amongst us poor lowly citizens would be a humbling experience for him. Besides, they wouldn't let me play in their labs," She explained.

"And that brings me to another point," said Tony, waving his hand wildly in the air. "Perry will be sharing our lab. Nick seems to think she would be of some use to us since she is stuck here anyway, and I have to keep an eye on her." Tony's voiced dripped with disdain.

"Ok, I am fine with sharing," said Bruce, confused by Tony's reluctance.

Sighing dramatically, Tony shot another glare at Perry. "Let's just say that the black sheep of the family is in the room and isn't me."

What the hell did that mean? Shaking his head, Bruce gave Perry a very confused look. "I am sorry, but your uncle has decided to start speaking in code…again."

Just as before, the girl gave him a nice smile before turning a nasty look onto Tony. "My uncle doesn't like the fact that I studied biology – "

Tony snorted indignantly.

"- and biotechnology, and genetics... Apparently it violates some imagined Stark family tradition that Tony has."

"While I was out saving the world with a suit that made out of scrap, this one was poking at cells under a microscope. Hmmm, I wonder who was making a real impact," He said loudly to be heard over Perry's angry muttering.

"I sometimes poke at cells under a microscope," said Bruce quietly with a feigned look of irritation.

A mini look of horror crossed Tony's face before he quickly recovered. " Well, I have this tower and she has a shack in the Everglades."

Bruce cocked his head. "Everglades?" he asked. "What sort of work did you do there?"

Perry's eyes lit up, and she leaned forward a little to break into a full scale description of her work. As she opened her mouth, Tony cut her off.

"You two can have a borefest later. Perry needs to go to her room and think about why she is here." Looking at his niece, he said," You're grounded. Maybe I should have you write lines or something. I am pretty sure getting stuck in Stark tower doesn't count as punishment."

"Oh my god, Dad, you are so mean!" shouted Perry, humor dancing in her eyes.

"Go to your room!" roared Tony.

As expected, Perry chose to ignore Tony's orders to go to her room opting instead to explore the other R&D floors of Stark tower. Two floors down she came across her new favorite trio. Inside the astrophysics lab, a dark haired girl names Darcy Lewis was carefully aiming paper airplanes at the back of a rather glorious head of blond hair. The Blond hair, as it turned out, was attached to a rather glorious Norse god named Thor, whose attention was currently directed at an episode of Walker Texas Ranger. The third member of the group, Jane, was carefully studying a series of photographs on the computer, each featuring an odd blue glow in the center of a night sky.

Letting herself into the lab, Perry made a beeline for Darcy.

"How do you sleep at night knowing this man-meat is in the next room," she asked, careful to not be heard by said man-meat and his girlfriend.

Darcy grinned. "Let's just say daily meetings with Captain America help me get my muscle fix."

Perry nodded approvingly. "Mmmm, good choice. So you and the Cap…"

"I wish. He is kind of old fashioned and he doesn't pick up on shameless flirting very well."

"Ah yes, the most beautiful men are always the most oblivious. I am Perry Stark, by the way," she said, sticking out her hand, which Darcy shook with gusto.

"Perry Stark? Any connection to the 'Man of Iron'?"

Perry rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately, yes. He is my uncle and I am imprisoned here by the cheer-monster, Fury."

Darcy nodded wistfully. "Ah yes, me too."

"What did you do to earn such a punishment?"

Throwing another paper airplane, Darcy managed to clip Thor on the back of his head. Rubbing his head furiously, he turned around and scowled at the assistant. "He was just about to roundhouse kick that man in the face! You made me miss it!"

Snickering, Darcy turned back to Perry. "Apparently Jane is not S.H.I.E.L.D. material, even though she is brilliant. Thor goes wherever Jane goes, so to keep close tabs on him they asked Tony to let them stay here. And since I know too much and Jane won't let them kill me, I am stuck here too."

"That sounds terrible."

Darcy shrugged. "I get paid more than I deserve and I can't object to the scenery." She gestured to the god sitting across the room.

"What did you do get stuck here?" Darcy asked, more as an afterthought.

"Oh I just helped myself to some fantastic reading material on the S.H.I.E.L.D. server, so I also know too much. As Tony's next of kin, they can't kill me either."

"Niiiiccee," drawled Darcy. "I can't even hack into Fury's facebook page. Oh to be burdened with this knowledge…" the girls let their eyes wander over to Thor who was doing a weird shadow-kickboxing dance during the commercial break.

"I caught him wearing Jane's underwear the other day," Darcy whispered. "He claims that they got mixed in his laundry."

Perry snickered at the mental image. "Nick worked undercover as a bouncer at a gay club in the 80's. He also moonlighted as a drag queen named 'Nikita'," she said.

A glazed look covered Darcy's face. "Oh my god, you have to get me pictures of that!"

"I think that can be arranged," Perry said, grinning at her new friend.

The next morning, Perry found herself wandering down to the lab at 6:00. Always an early riser, she liked the idea of having a chance to explore the lab before Tony came in and messed everything up. Plus, she was going to have to order some equipment. There was a perfectly good lab a few floors below, one that was better suited for her research, but Tony wanted to keep a close eye on her and wouldn't let her work anywhere else. He was turning into such a mother hen that Perry was going to have to start clucking at him.

An hour later, Bruce came down to the lab and was quite surprised to find Perry already there. The young woman was sitting on the floor, using her hands to carefully manipulate the image of a DNA structure on one of Tony's holo-screens. Spinning it around quickly, the spiral became a blur of color. "Wicked," she breathed, not aware that she was being watched.

With some strange compulsion blocking all mental capacities, Bruce joined her in sitting on the floor and looking up at the DNA, which was now moving in a slow rotation. Perry acknowledged him with a small smile and turned back to the image.

"Is this your DNA?" he asked.

Perry nodded.

"Well your DNA is quite lovely," he said. Where the hell had that come from?

Giving him an odd look, a slow smile spread across her face. "Thank you."

"I-I-I just mean the spectrum, it is a nice combination," he stuttered, his face turning bright red.

Perry's grin widened, and Bruce was immediately struck with how much she looked like Tony when he had that mischievous light in his eye.

"I know what you mean, and thank you. Not everyone can appreciate good looking DNA."

Bruce rolled his eyes. Yep, definitely a Stark.

Nudging him, Perry caught Bruce's attention again. "So when are you going to show me your DNA?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

Bruce sighed. Of course, there was a catch. "Why are you really here, Perry? Does Nick think that you can save me?"

He did not mind that they were trying to cure him. He had been trying for years, but was never successful. He just did not like the underhanded methods that Nick Fury used. First he tells him that he just wants a little help locating the tesseract. Then he sends an agent who claims to be alone and not with and entire platoon of gunmen. Then it is revealed that guess what, S.H.E.I.L.D. wants the tesseract for weapons not clean energy. There was nothing up front or honest about Nick Fury. Tony on the other hand hid nothing from Bruce.

Perry bit her lip and looked down at the floor. With a swipe of her hand, the DNA model disappeared. "Nick does want me to try and help, but that isn't why I am here."

"Then why? I find it very hard to believe that Nick Fury would allow a hacker to live with Tony Stark, of all people."

Perry smirked. "I suppose that was a rather crummy story. Trust me, I didn't want to go along with it. Look, Tony can't know why I am really here or he will totally freak out. Let's go get breakfast, and I will tell you a bit more about it."

Bruce hesitated. Breakfast, with Perry, in the real world? It sounded like a very bad combination. "Ok, fine. You can tell me everything over coffee," he said, surprising himself as the words came out of his mouth.

Standing up, Perry gave Bruce her hand to help him up. "You know," she said as they stood momentarily chest-to-chest," I really do want to see your DNA. I bet it is pretty too."

Bruce snorted and rolled his eyes. "Your uncle killed the effect of flattery on me long ago."

"So let me get this straight," said Bruce as he and Perry dug into their bacon and eggs. "You have an encounter with a massive and highly dangerous maybe-alien, and your first reaction is to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D. to see if they have any files on them?"

Perry nodded, her expression confused by his reaction. "Of course, what else would I have done?"

"Oh I don't know, call the police maybe?"

Perry laughed. "The police would have locked me up for being crazy. I was fine. I had the thing hogtied in my bathroom, so it wasn't going to do anymore damage. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't have information on the thing, so I called Nick Fury myself and told him that I started a new file on the creepy alien that was hanging out in my house."

"You started a file…" muttered Bruce, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah, I did. And then Fury swooped in, like a damn bird of prey, took the guy out of my bathroom and made me come with them. I tell you what there is no 'Hi, how are you ' with him…"

Bruce furrowed his brow. S.H.I.E.L.D. had captured a dangerous alien and neglected to tell the Avengers? Wasn't protecting the innocents from big raging aliens the entire point of the team?

"….I bet he skips out on foreplay too. He probably walks in the room and shouts 'Panties off, now." Perry's impersonation of the formidable director was horribly accurate.

"Wha-what?!" sputtered Bruce, finding the second coffee stain in two days developing on his clothes.

Perry snickered at the poor man's embarrassment.

Sighing, Bruce mopped up his mess with a napkin. "It is unnerving how much you two are alike," he muttered, tossing the soggy napkin onto his empty plate.

Perry gave him a pained look. "Take that back."

Smiling faintly, Bruce proceeded to the other question that was playing in the back of his mind. "What work were you doing in the Everglades?"

"Oh that, it wasn't much really," Perry frowned. "Ok, it was pretty big, but I wasn't getting a lot of support on that project. Basically, I found that stem cells from the Florida Reef Gecko were surprisingly resistant damage from high doses of radiation – specifically, cancer caused by gamma radiation. When irradiated cells were introduced to the lizards, I was able to use their own stem cells to stabilize them."

Bruce wrinkled his brow, his face thoughtful as he considered what she was saying. "Do the cells reverse the damage, or just keep it from getting worse?"

"They just keep it from getting worse. I wanted to take the research a step further and see what if some simple manipulation could reverse the damage, or – "

"Create a whole new form of cancer," finished Bruce. He shook his head. "That would be very risky, trust me, I know what a bit of gamma radiation can do." His voice was bitter, and Perry didn't try to stop herself from placing a comforting hand on his. Bruce stared down at her hand, his mouth set in a hard line, and slowly covered it with his other warm hand.

"Before going to the Everglades, I worked in Chernobyl. I was studying the long-term effects of radiation on the environment. There has already been a great deal of research in that area, but nobody has been able to collect the sheer amount of data that I collected there. Most radiation research has been done in labs, but I wanted to be there first hand, and to collect real information from the field. As expected, I found that extended exposure slowly kills the body, while intense high levels cause…well… you know." Her voice was gentle, and Bruce thought he heard some sadness mingled in her words. Squeezing her hand lightly, he drew his hands back and clasped them in his lap.

"Why did you leave Chernobyl? I can't imagine that it was safe for you to work there."

Perry furrowed her brow. "No it really wasn't safe to be there, but that didn't matter. I would have stayed longer, but Tony dragged me out and demanded that I do my research elsewhere. So I moved on, ended up in the Everglades and made some major discoveries, at least I think so. I tried to go to Fukushima, you know, since I am a mini expert on radiation damage, but Tony made sure that didn't happen either."

Bruce shook his head. "He cares about you. And I don't blame him. If I was him, I wouldn't let you either."

Perry's expression darkened and she sat stiffly in her chair. "You wouldn't let me go?" Her voice took a dangerously icy tone.

Bruce let out and exasperated sigh and raked his hand through his wavy brown hair. "Damn right I wouldn't. As I said, I know just how dangerous that radiation can be."

Perry didn't answer; she just gave Bruce a curious look before a grin broke her grim expression. "I suppose I can't argue with that. So tell me about working with Tony. Have you seen his I-figured-something-out dance?"

Bruce chuckled and relaxed in his seat a bit. "Yeah, I've seen that dance. He has a song for it too."

Perry's grin was just shy of being evil. "Your mission now, my angry friend, is to capture this on video. I will ensure that it gets in all the right hands."