Welcome to Chapter 2 of Shadow Recruiter. Thanks for your positive responses to Chapter 1. They inspired me to continue on.

In this chapter you'll find heavy involvement from the entire Avengers team, plus the promised Bruce/Nat woven throughout. I envision this story to go to three or four chapters, and it will end pretty much where Age of Ultron begins.

Trigger warning for a mention of suicide.

Hope you enjoy!

A few days pass, and after some extended meditation on the subject, Bruce Banner concludes that his attraction to Natasha Romanoff is inconvenient, but manageable. He's just a man who has been alone with his anger and shame for too long, and she's a beautiful, mysterious, ass-kicking superspy. It's human nature. He won't be the first man to have a crush on her, and he won't be the last.

He's been mildly attracted to one or two women since Betty; it always passes, and if it were just a physical attraction, he suspects that this time would be no different. The danger lies with the fact that while she is undeniably one of the most beautiful women he's ever met, she's also sassy, and witty, and challenges him intellectually. That's a potent combination. There's certainly potential for this small inconvenience to grow into a large problem, so he needs to nip this in the bud. Now.

Some slightly more focused meditation allows him to come up with a strategy. He just has to give himself a little distance, until this silly infatuation of his runs its course. That's easy enough, Tony has invariably got five or six projects going on at any one time, so there's plenty to do in the labs, along with his own work he's conducting when he has a spare moment. Tony has given him almost total access (second only to Pepper and JARVIS) to any and all Stark Industries tech he desires; most scientists would kill to have the privilege. As a grad student he could only dream of having a lab like this, state-of-the-art equipment, nearly limitless resources to conduct any kind of experiment he likes, and an always-willing lab partner in Tony (especially if it involves fire or blowing something up.) So he's got plenty of distractions at his fingertips.

On top of that, if he needs a little extra motivation, he only has to picture what she'd do if she found out. Laugh at him perhaps, pity him, maybe it would even make her angry. He's not sure which would be worse. And quite frankly, he'd rather walk naked through Times Square than give Tony that kind of ammunition. If his best friend finds out, he, the rest of team, and probably the general population of New York City will never, ever hear the end of it.

He still sees her around the Tower fairly regularly; Tony likes for them all to eat together whenever they can, and he's quite relieved about it. The others provide a natural buffer between himself and Natasha, allowing him to keep conversation to a minimum. Tony has a tendency to take over any conversation he is (or isn't) involved in, and usually manages to irritate everyone enough that they're all too busy shooting daggers at him with their eyes to notice that Bruce has quietly slipped away.

Well, Natasha and Clint probably do notice, he figures, but he doubts they particularly care. He's just part of the scenery of Avengers Tower to them; he's just kind of there.

Tonight, Tony corrals them all into the dining area with the promise of all the pizza they can eat and an open drink selection. Bruce suspects that this sudden outpouring of generosity has a lot to do with the fact that Pepper's in Tokyo on Stark Industries business and won't be back for a week. Pepper takes a lot of trips these days, and she's told Bruce in confidence that she's very glad he's come to live in the Tower with them, because she feels better having someone around to keep an eye on Tony, who can be dangerous if bored and left to his own devices.

Steve is the first to arrive. He helps himself to pizza but forgoes the large selection of alcohol in favour of a glass of water. In his head, Bruce counts to three. Steve is hard-pressed to do anything without earning some kind of sarcastic remark from Tony, and naturally, this time is no exception.

"Whoa, slow down there old man, you don't want to get onto the hard stuff too early, what kind of example is that for the children?"

Steve rolls his eyes. "If they want an example of what not to do in life, Stark, they have a shining example in you."

"Are you kidding? I got money, smarts, charm, good looks, the hottest chick in New York, and I'm a superhero," Tony reels off proudly. "Not to mention I got a buddy to do science with, the sweetest tech in the world and a rapier sharp wit. What else do I need?"

"Perhaps a personality transplant," Steve suggests, lightly. "Or maybe you could invent something to surgically reduce your enormous ego." He pretends to consider for a moment. "Or on second thought, don't, it'd probably malfunction and blow you up."

Bruce stifles a chuckle as Tony's eyes narrow. He will happily accept almost any slight on his personal character, but the moment someone insults his work, he takes offence. "All right, listen here you glorified action figure…"

Bruce tunes them out and reaches for a plate. When Steve and Tony get like this, it's usually best just to leave them alone to duke it out. They have an almost insatiable need to get under each other's skin, the unofficial leader of the Avengers and his unofficial second-in-command, and there have been times when Bruce has seriously considered stepping in to break them up, but so far, there's been no actual bloodshed.

He has long suspected that Steve sometimes provokes Tony on purpose, like now, and that he quite enjoys fighting with him. It's one of the rare times when he doesn't have to be good, righteous Captain America, but can just be Steve Rogers, who gets to have fun teasing his buddy. He's missed out on a lot of that, since he was on ice.

"Another lover's tiff, is it?" Clint's voice takes him by surprise, and his head whips round to see that both he and Natasha have arrived, holding a bottle of beer each and sinking into chairs. They move so silently that he rarely hears them coming, especially with Tony and Steve bickering next to him. "What set them off this time?"

"Nothing worth repeating."

Natasha is reaching towards the stack of plates, and Bruce hastily moves his hand away to avoid brushing against her arm, as though she could figure out what's going on with him just from that. Then again, she knows all about how to read and manipulate men, for all he knows, she could.

She notices his hasty retreat, he can tell because her eyes follow the motion for a fraction of a second, but she simply takes two plates, hands one to Clint, and proceeds to help herself to pizza.

The bandage is gone from her arm, he sees now, and she's moving it freely, so it's clearly healed. That's good. He also notices that both she and Clint are sweaty, and she's got her hair scraped back in a messy ponytail, the way she only bothers to do when they're sparring.

He hates himself for noticing all this. If he was as pedantic about his gamma radiation research as he is about cataloguing irrelevant details about Natasha Romanoff, perhaps the Other Guy would be just an imaginary monster for the comic books instead of his personal living nightmare.

But there's no point going down this road again. This was the kind of thinking that caused his suicide attempt, the day he realised that there was no easy way out of this particular mess. It's going to be him and the Hulk, together forever, until the end of days, outliving Tony, Clint, Natasha, even Steve. One by one, they'll fall, and he'll watch each one be buried, until they're all gone, some of the greatest friends he'll ever have. The one group of people he can sit in a room with and know that they see more than the Hulk in him.

There'll still be Thor, at least. But he's got his own problems, and a kingdom to help run, he won't have the time to comfort a lonely man with a monster within, and a thousand regrets.

No, in the end, it'll just be the two of them.

"Bruce?" This time it's Natasha's husky voice that breaks into his thoughts. Shamefacedly, he meets her eyes, can see something in them that almost looks like concern. "You might wanna grab yourself a couple slices before the Iron Garbage Disposal and Captain Crunch finish their little quarrel. They'll eat at least two pizzas between them, and you won't even get a look in."

"You OK, Banner?" enquires Clint, eyeing him curiously. "We lost you there for a while."

"Clint…" her voice is low as she cuts her gaze to her best friend, and Bruce almost misses the tiny shake of her head but can guess it's meaning. Back off. Leave him be.

Bruce is grateful for her intervention, even though he knows that if he were any kind of man, let alone the hero they all insist he is; he'd be able to answer his teammate. He takes the box she's offering him, with a muttered word of thanks and a glum sort of smile, ignoring the way something seems to clench inside him when she smiles back.

The team go their separate ways after dinner and Bruce forgoes his usual evening session in the lab, choosing instead to sit on the balcony of his floor of the Tower, in the cool night air. The lights of the city that never sleeps begin to flare around him in the skyscrapers and on the street, each denoting another soft, breakable person that the Hulk could destroy if he ever got loose again. That's why he likes it up here, high above them, so they can go about their lives safe from him. It was the same in Calcutta; he only emerged to heal and do good, and could keep his distance for the rest of the time.

Then SHIELD came barging into his life again, with that red-haired Russian assassin leading the charge. Sometimes he wonders if Fury's decision to send her to recruit him was a strategic move, if he maybe thought Bruce would be distracted enough by the beautiful messenger, to not realise the message was the call to arms he'd never wanted to answer.

He wouldn't be totally wrong.

When he wakes up the next morning, it's to find the Tower in a flurry of activity. This can only mean one thing: a mission has come in. It's time for Earth's Mightiest Heroes to earn their keep.

'Dr Banner,' JARVIS's cool tones come flowing from the intercom, 'Captain Rogers requests a word with you before he leaves.'

"All right JARVIS, call me an elevator and I'll head right up there."

"Right away, Doctor Banner."

If he ever leaves the Tower, he's going to miss JARVIS. It's been disturbingly easy to get used to having Tony's AI at his beck and call.

He arrives on one of the topmost floors of Avengers Tower, which chiefly serves as the hangar for the quinjet when it isn't in use, as well as a storage space for Tony's suits that have malfunctioned or glitched in some way (it is far too dangerous to allow any of his technology to fall into the wrong hands, so he keeps them hidden away from prying eyes. Here, he finds Steve, decked out in his full Captain America regalia, shield in hand, waiting impatiently near the bank of elevators, who gives him a brisk nod of greeting.

"Doctor," he says, tersely. Bruce recognises the symptoms of him moving into battle mode, this uncharacteristically sharp tone, and fingers drumming on the edge of his shield are dead giveaways that he is anxious to be gone. "I called for everyone half an hour ago, and still no Stark."

If Bruce squints, he can see the faint outlines of someone (most likely, Clint) at the controls of the jet, preparing it to leave as soon as Steve gives the word. Natasha, he can't see, but assumes she's already on board.

Another elevator arrives, and Tony steps out of it, wearing his latest Iron Man suit, and sipping at a steaming mug. Steve casts him a look of clear irritation.

"Did you not hear me call for the Avengers to assemble?" he asks.

Tony rolls his eyes. "Keep your spangles on, Cap, I'm assembling. Why else would I be up at this ungodly hour?" His eyes light up at the sight of Bruce. "Don't tell me you've changed your mind, Banner," he says, excitedly. "We got room for one more."

Bruce and Steve both deny this idea, and Tony is clearly disappointed, showing his displeasure by handing the half-full cup to Bruce and walking away to prepare for departure.

"If this isn't a Hulk thing, then what is it?" he asks Steve now, genuinely curious.

"I still don't agree with your decision," says Steve. "But I respect it. However, we need some backup on this one so I've reached out to Thor. I told him to meet us there, but if he gets his wires crossed or something and winds up here first, give him our coordinates, and point him in the right direction, and keep an ear on the comms, like usual."

Since his refusal to fight, Steve often gives him jobs like this, that keep him involved with what they're doing without requiring him to fight. They are small, menial tasks that could easily be given to someone else but he doesn't mind. It allows him to help them, and keep innocent civilians safe. Win-win.

"I can do that."

"Hey Cap! Let's go already! Get your star-spangled ass over here." Natasha is standing by the quinjet ramp, gesturing for Steve to join them. Bruce wishes him luck, and watches as he sprints to the jet and up the ramp, which closes behind him. With a loud pulse of energy from Iron Man's thrusters, he takes off first and shoots out into the sky, the jet in hot pursuit. In a split second, they are gone, off to save the world again.

A few hours later, they've arrived at the HYDRA stronghold and everything appears to be going well. The comms are alive with chatter, Steve giving orders, Tony making jokes, and Clint relaying the positions of the enemy from whatever vantage point he's perched on today. He doesn't hear much from Natasha, but that's not unusual, she prefers to let her actions speak, or to put it simply, she's usually too busy beating up bad guys to chat.

But then he hears it.

"Well someone call Admiral Ackbar, cause it's a trap!" Bruce detects genuine fear under his best friend's usual bravado, and then Steve chimes in with an 'oh Christ.' That's about as close as Steve Rogers ever gets to swearing, so whatever it is has got to be bad.

He's saved from asking the question by Clint. "People, we've got problems. Four tanks and another hundred soldiers, heading this way, and we don't have either of our big-hitters. Where the hell is Thor?"

'Bruce?" He starts a little at the sound of his name. This is the first time he has ever been addressed directly during a mission he's listening in on. "You gotta track down Thor. As fast as you can. We need back-up."

"Guys." His blood runs cold as Natasha's low voice fills his earpiece. "I've got my back to a wall and twenty of them coming my way. Quit the chatter. I need to concentrate."

The comms go silent.

Luckily, Thor thuds down to earth about twenty minutes later, time that Bruce has spent frantically calling anybody he knows has even the slightest connection to the Asgardian to try and figure out where he is. It turns out that he misheard Steve (still unfamiliar with the concept of telephones) and flew to Australia instead of Austria. When he hears the news, he wants to leave immediately.

And take Bruce with him.

"Our friends need our assistance, Banner," he says, in his booming voice that ricochets off the walls. "We must go."

'But-'

"Enough of your protests!" Thor speaks over him. "Your concern for the safety of innocents does you credit Banner, but it is the height of dishonour to abandon one's friends when one has the power to help. I will not allow you to become such a man."

And before Bruce has time to protest, he grabs him, swings Mjolnir and they too, are off to save the world.

It's one of the most uncomfortable journeys of Bruce's life, and the Other Guy is bellowing in protest most of the way, to the point that he thinks he might transform once or twice. The curious thing though, is that under the Hulk's indignation at being picked up and carried around like a child, there is also a bit of satisfaction. After a while, he recognises it for what it is: bloodlust. The Hulk has become bored with their quiet lifestyle. He is eager to fight.

Thor drops him unceremoniously next to the quinjet, and summons up a thunderbolt that strikes the HYDRA base, leaving the air sizzling with power. Without a backward look, he takes flight once more and Bruce hears the almighty crash as he bursts through the roof, into the fray.

His earpiece was lost somewhere over the Atlantic, so he has no way of hailing the others to see how they're going, but he can hear a lot of screaming and repeated explosions from the base, so he supposes Thor's surprise appearance is doing its job. But he can't be sure.

His friends are in there. Natasha is in there. The Other Guy is fighting him for control, to be unleashed, desperate to get in there and SMASH! like Steve had told him to in New York.

It's building, and building. It's getting hard to hold him back. Bruce drops to the ground, uses every ounce of self-control he has to push the green monster back down inside him. He can't become the Hulk again.

Another explosion. More screams. The cracking, groaning sound of a beam collapsing. Out of the corner of his eye he can see one of the tanks. The gun barrel is moving, following a blur of red and gold, lining up the shot.

It's too much. The Other Guy is too strong. He succumbs.

When the roars of the Hulk fill the frozen air, Bruce Banner remembers no more.

Twenty men is not even close to the most that Natasha has had to take on at one time, but still, it's no picnic in the park either. She spins, flips, punches, kicks out, leaps, ducks, and uses her Widow's Bites when the opportunity arises. She's very glad she bullied Stark into fixing them up right away or she may have been in a bit of trouble here.

She thinks of nothing but the enemies before her, takes them down one by one, like she's been doing all her life. No thought for the others, or for the greater mission they're here for, just the job at hand.

It takes a little longer than she'd like (the pizza from last night has taken its toll) but soon enough they're all exactly where she wants them: unconscious on the floor.

'Everyone still alive?" she enquires.

Predictably, Stark is the first to respond. "Yeah, just playing a little target practice with the tanks, and I'll give you one guess which one of us is the target."

"People are shooting at you, and they didn't invite me?" Clint breaks in. She sighs in relief. If her best friend is able to make stupid jokes, he's clearly okay. She scans the lower level of the base, where she and Clint have been working and can't see any movement.

"I think we're clear down here," she reports. "Everyone still alive went running upstairs when they heard the crash-what was that anyway? Was it Thor?"

"Yep that was our resident demigod's grand entrance," says Stark. "Thunder, lightning, chiselled abs, perfect hair, the whole enchilada."

"Jeez Stark, do I need to throw a bucket of cold water over you?" Natasha teases.

"You're hilarious Romanoff, If only we could all have a good laugh about it together, but you know, I'm a little busy right-well I'll be damned."

"What?" Both she and Clint demand to know at the same time.

"Told you, I'm busy. Come outside and see for yourself."

Natasha wrenches open a side door, and takes off toward the distinct sounds of a battle. She can hear explosions, gunfire, repeated blasts from Iron Man's repulsor beams, the crackling of flames, crunching metal…and an ear-splitting roar that she would recognise from miles away. Which is exactly where its owner is supposed to be, miles away.

"Is that-?"

"You can bet your black leather-suited ass on it, Widow," says Stark cheerfully. "He was a little late, but everyone knows that the party don't start till the Hulk walks in."

She rounds the side of the now-destroyed building (total destruction seems to be their trademark) to see the Hulk, bellowing in fury, tearing apart an armoured tank as though it were a toy, then throwing a second one across a clearing where it lands on its side. HYDRA agents begin spilling out and she draws her gun, hitting the first one square between the eyes. The Hulk deals with the other tanks as the rest of team gathers for the last part of the battle. She ducks as Steve's shield goes whizzing over her head, hits four enemies, and then returns to its master.

"Good to have him back, isn't it, Cap?"

"Sure is, Widow. Now let's finish this thing and go home."

"Aye, aye Captain," she mock-salutes.

"Shut up."

Ten minutes later, the job is done. They're all alive, and there's one less HYDRA base to worry about. Mission accomplished. There's just one more green, angry problem to take care of.

The Hulk, it seems, isn't ready for the battle to be over. It's been a while since he's been in control after all; so he doesn't seem to want to hand back over to Banner just yet.

Thor, Steve and Tony are standing in a semi-circle around the big guy, who is busily ripping up a tree by the roots, while she and Clint have retreated back to a safer distance. She's no coward, and she's not scared of him, but she knows he could snap her like a twig if he wants to, and it's pretty clear that the big guy isn't her biggest fan. Unlike his alter ego, she notes, but she'll think more on that later.

"So now what?" Clint pipes up. "We all just stand around and stare at him until he de-Hulks? Because I know a bunch of people looking at me like I'm a lunatic always brings my anger levels right down."

'Shut up, Clint," she and Tony say, in unison, but Steve wearily shakes his head.

"He's right, we have to do something. Stark, didn't you say you were working on something?"

But Stark shakes his head too. "Veronica hasn't been tested yet. I have no idea if it'll work."

"Great."

At this point, the tree's roots part company with the ground, and the Hulk tosses it aside, snarling. As Clint predicted, he narrows his eyes when he sees them all watching him, and lets out a low growl. When he takes a step towards them, Thor springs into action, the only one of them with even close to enough physical strength to try and restrain him, but he is weakened from the battle, and the Hulk breaks his hold on him and slams him into the earth, and once more for good measure.

Steve raises his shield, and Tony primes his repulsors, and Natasha can see this is about to turn into yet another battle royale if nobody can stop it.

"Can someone call Pep and tell her to prepare a couple ice baths for us?" quips Tony. "I think we're gonna be sore tomorrow."

"This is exactly what Banner was worried about," Clint offers, unhelpfully. "If you'd all quit pushing him we wouldn't be in this mess."

Once again, Tony barks at him to shut up, but Natasha feels her best friend has a point. Bruce is going to feel guilty enough about the lives he's taken today, without hurting one of his friends as well. He carries a lot of guilt already; she knows because she carries it too. The last things he needs is to add more.

And then she has the idea. The Hulk may be standing in front of her but Bruce is in there too, and Bruce has a tendency to…react to her presence. Since he stitched up her wound, she's noticed that he tries to avoid physical contact at all costs. She puts it down to one of two reasons; that he hates her and never wants to touch her again, or that he liked it a little too much. And judging by the way she catches him looking at her sometimes, she's willing to bet it's the latter.

It's quite flattering really, if not a little unexpected, but that's by the by. The point is she might be able to use this, if the Hulk lets her get close enough to touch. It's a risk to be sure, but worth a try.

"Cover me," she tells the others and slips out from behind the tree.

OK, so I know the origin of the lullaby has been done before, and by writers more talented than myself so that is why I am offering you a choice for the next chapter. I can describe my version of how I think it went or skip over it and move on with the story. I see the lullaby as a very important development in their relationship so can't ignore it completely, but I'm happy to keep it in the background if people want.

If you have a preference, or even just want to tell me what you think of the story in general, please do so.

Part 3 should be up in a few weeks, but I have final exams and stuff that will need to come first.

Thanks for reading!