Bruce was staring at his friends—God, it felt so weird to call them friends—with an apologetic look on his face. And from their expressions, it didn't look like the apology was going to be accepted any time soon. Helen Cho was telling them about Project Mother Goose, a name Bruce found hilarious, but the rest of the Avengers...well, not so much.

"So what you're saying is, we gotta go toe-to-toe with the big green guy?" Clint asked. "Are you nuts? I mean, no offense Banner—er, Bruce."

Blood rushed to Bruce's cheeks and he looked at his feet. He knew this whole thing was a stupid idea, and Clint was right. It would be dangerous. But Helen found Clint's little outburst funny and chuckled, continued to explain the Project in a way that made it seem like something other than selfish. Which, Bruce knew, and his friends too, probably, it wasn't. "No," she said with a polite smile. "You wouldn't be fighting the Hulk. Quite the opposite. All it is is one of you reenacting a calmative ritual Dr. Banner and I have developed that'll help calm Hulk down, and bring Dr. Banner back. A lullaby, I guess you could call it."

Tony moved from his place leaning against the wall and walked over to Clint, patting him on the back and saying, "Well, I guess we got ourselves a volunteer. You can handle a little old green behemoth, right Hawkeye?"

Bruce put his face in his hands, and through his fingers he could hear a muffled "In your dreams," from Clint, and some laughs from Steve, Natasha, and Thor.

"Guys," he said, removing his hands, a guilty smile on his face. "It's not like that."

"Yes, I was just about to get to that," Helen said, a wry, conspiratorial grin on her face. It seemed to Bruce that she could read his discomfort, and that it was probably for the best to make this as funny as possible. "Well, Tony, you're not wrong. Agent Barton will perform the lullaby."

"There we go. Sorry, Barton," Tony said.

"Wait, Mr. Stark," Helen interrupted, addressing her old friend with a mocking formality, her grin almost breaking into full-on laughter. "You didn't let me finish! Dr. Banner and I expect certain problems if the lullaby is performed by only one person each time there's a...what do you call it? Code Green?" she said, looking to Bruce for help, cracking up at last.

Bruce rolled his eyes and turned back to his friends. "Yeah," he said. "You see, the, ah, the Other Guy—well, it was really Dr. Cho who's predicting this, you know—but Dr. Cho is pretty sure that the Other Guy is probably pretty adept at facial recognition and memory, and thus resisting if he recognizes any person that he knows will, erm, 'put him to sleep.' This might make something like Mother Goose-" Bruce laughed a bit to himself. Steve snickered a bit too, but, noticing the patently unamused looks from the other Avengers—especially Natasha, who Bruce thought was gritting her teeth a bit, unusual from the resident dad-joke teller who would normally love such a stupid joke—Bruce continued. "Um, anyway, it seems that right now the Other Guy seems to have pretty weakened cognitive skills. So, we're pretty sure that as long as we rotate—alphabetical order by last name, Helen and I were thinking?—he won't recognize any of you."

That seemed to be enough information as suddenly everyone started to react with reluctant sighs and grumbles.

"Are you sure that we'd be able to handle him? There's a reason why Code Green is our nuclear option," said Natasha, speaking in her usual clipped, tactical language.

Tony looked at her with feigned shock. "What is this?" he asked. "Could it be that Natasha Romanov, Russian ass-kicker extraordinaire, is scared of a little old green, mutated baby? No offense, Bruce."

Bruce could only sigh. "Guys-." he said.

Natasha glared at Tony. "That's high talk coming from a man who has to hide in an iron mask when he fights."

Everyone laughed, even Bruce, albeit a bit more nervously than everyone else, it seemed to him. He tried again. "Guys-"

"Well played, Agent. Well played," congratulated Tony.

Third time's the charm? Bruce thought to himself, and said, a bit more declarative now, "Guys!"

Steve, who had been almost entirely silent thus far, nodded at Bruce, eyes focused, and asked, "What's up?"

"Look, I know that this all sounds dangerous, but controlling and smoothing the transition from…" Bruce trails off for a second as he gestures vaguely at the space to his right, opposite Helen. "Him, to me, is a really smart move. You know how much damage he can do, that's why we use him. But that damage goes from being good to bad once it starts hurting the people that we don't want it to hurt. You all remember Budapest?"

"Which time?" asked Clint with a chuckle, looking at Natasha. Her grinding teeth seemed to slow.

"The time when we were all there!" Bruce answers, slightly exasperated. He took a breath. "Okay. Sorry. Anyway, you all know what I mean. Plus…" he said, unsure of whether to say what he wanted to add. "Plus, it would really help me out. The whole Code Green thing really, you know…" Bruce waved a hand at some invisible image in front of him.

Steve cocked his head a bit and, taking a deep breath, said, "Yeah, you're right. I think it's worth it. Dangerous otherwise, for a lot of people. But especially you."

Bruce sighed, a smile creeping across his face as the other Avengers started to nod in agreement. Even Tony couldn't seem to produce a smartass comment. Natasha stared at the floor, a slight grimace on her face, but nodded too.

"Of course!" Thor added, walking over to Bruce, who had been sitting in front of them like a teacher giving a lecture. "The Hulk doesn't dare pose a threat to us. Especially if we're fighting for you, Banner!" Thor lifted Bruce out of his seat and brought him into a bear-hug.

"Thank you, Thor," wheezed Bruce, his arms pinned down by Thor's but still smiling widely. "But you're not fighting him."

"It's just a simple routine. A verbal initiation phrase, followed by a simple, gentle, skin-on-skin contact," Helen jumped in.

"Sounds erotic," Tony said, eyebrows raised.

As Thor finally released Bruce from the embrace, Bruce laughed, genuinely happy to hear Tony joke around, and said, "Grow up, Tony."

"Now," said Helen, turning on her iPad. "I've already developed the phrase and the touch that would work with what I've done with Dr. Banner. It'll only take five minutes or so to teach you all, and then, as the Hulk makes an appearance in the future, we'll go in alphabetical order by last name. Deal?"

The Avengers agreed.

God, was Bruce happy to call them friends.