Spectrum ⇒ Avengers [ 1 ]

Research & Discoveries

As predicted, the morning after my showdown with Connors does not go well.

I lag behind Zed on my run, almost fall asleep during my lessons, and spend most of the day hobbling around, clutching whichever part of my body is hurting the most at that moment in time. I'm about to pass out on the sofa before Tony appears, sitting down next to me and grinning.

"Rough night, lucky charms?" I open one eye and glare at him.
"Yeah, looks like it." I mutter, closing it again.
"Wouldn't have anything to do with you hulking out, would it?"

My eyes fly open and I sit up, staring at him, and then at the ceiling. "JARVIS," I growl. "You said-"
"Oh, JARVIS didn't tell me." Tony dismisses with a wave of his hand. "The elevator was damp and the furnace was on last night, so I checked the security feed and found a very interesting video of you staggering in at 2am in ripped clothes."
"It was 1:45," I growl, as if it makes any difference. "And it's none of your business."
"My tower, my business." Tony corrects. "So what was it like? Is Harlem intact? I didn't find any reports about anything like a rampage, so how'd you do it? Meditation? Drugs? Really hardcore se-"
"I was in a sewer." I groan and crack my back. Tony wrinkles his nose.
"So I'm going to have to get the carpets dry cleaned, I was wondering what the funny smell was... JARVIS, book a cleaner in as soon as possible."
"Already done, sir."

"So why a sewer? No Irish cafés in sight?" I roll my eyes.
"I hulked out on purpose," I say, mostly to stop him bombarding me with questions. "Just to... See what would happen. You know."
"Really." Tony looks completely unconvinced.
"Yeah, and you know what, I could think." This gets his attention. "I was actually in control, pretty much. I mean, I was really, really angry, but-"
"Wait, wait." Tony holds up a hand. "You're saying you were thinking clearly while in hulk form?"
"Yeah. I just felt really pissed off."

"Interesting. Very interesting. Only one thing for it," he says. "We make you hulk out and run some tests."
"No way." I deny. Tony's face drops. "Last night could have been a fluke! And it was painful."
"Science never progressed without pain." Tony says seriously.
"Isn't that what they say about fashion?"
"It comes to the same thing." I cross my arms and he sighs.
"Fine! But no more trailing sewage over my carpet, I already had to replace them once, when Barton walked toffee popcorn all over the floor." He complains. "But that's not why I was going to talk to you, anyway. I wanted to ask you about the Tarantula."

I immediately stiffen. "What about her?"
"Well," he says, touching the table in front of us. "S.H.I.E.L.D's been trying to track her down, and I thought I'd let them do the grunt work while I run a sort of... Side project." The table lights up, turns blue, and becomes 3-D. A map of the world turns blinks in front of us. "So, they're running her facial features against camera systems all over the world, but facial recognition is slow, and she's good at what she does, so they've only got old hits from before you escaped."
A few spots on the map light up- somewhere in Northern Ireland, England, Africa and China.
"She was in these places?" I ask, looking over the map.
"For the past year, yes." Tony shoots me a side glance. "Quite the globe-trotter, but that's not what I wanted to show you. I thought I'd start from the other end- find the kids, find her."

I have to admit, it's a smart move. I just hope they're still alive.
"How are you doing that?" I ask. He taps the corner of the hologram, and a scrolling list appears.
"This is everyone in your part of Ireland that went missing or ran away from home during that time frame in your age category." He says. "Of course, I can't find long-term homeless kids or people who weren't reported missing, but it's a start."
"It's still a lot of names." I object.
"That's where you come in, green machine. We need to narrow it down, so tell me, what was she looking for?"