Silhouettes | Loki fanfiction

Prologue

In which an angry man is confronted and the end of the world looms near

(A/N: This chapter is very film-formulaic but I promise it's not going to be like this usually)

Kolkata, India
Five weeks earlier 

"Should have got paid up front Banner."
Bruce spoke in a droll voice as he stared at the window. The young girl had come crying to him, begging that he help her father in his sickness. 

She'd been so young, so scared that it hadn't even crossed his mind to turn her away and he had followed her without question, through the back roads of the slums and out into the edge of the city, but it would seem at the last minute she'd gotten cold feet and had escaped through the window at the back of the house. 

He gave a sigh. It was going to be a long walk home.

"You know, for a man who was supposed to be avoiding stress, you've picked a hell of a place to settle." A low voice spoke from the shadows and Banner spun round to see a young red-headed woman standing opposite him, studying him curiously. 

His eyes narrowed slightly. Her tone was light but her words showed that she knew exactly who he was and he cursed his own stupidity. Here, in the slums of India, seemed a perfect hiding place. Where cities within cities created a crowd of thousands, where paperwork and official documents were non-existent - it was so easy to become anonymous. He'd spent the first few months on constant high alert, tense and with a crick in his neck from looking over his shoulder to often, but as the weeks slowly slipped by without incident, without even a murmur, his anxiety had faded and his stomach had uncurled from it's iron clamp. 

He'd allowed himself to relax, his desperate hope that they'd stopped looking for him turning into a belief that they had.

"Avoiding stress isn't the secret." He spoke carefully.

"Then what is it? Yoga?" She smirked.

Banner gave a self-berating laugh as he wrung his hands together.  A trap. Of course it was, he should have seen it coming, but he'd allowed himself to get comfortable and walked right into their hands.  

"You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart." This way, there'd be no one around to help. Nor anyone to get in the way if .. the Other Guy made an appearance. Bruce gave another chuckle and gave an faux-interested look around the shack. "I assume the whole place is surrounded?"

There was a pause. "Just you and me."

Bruce scoffed inwardly. She was sent alone? To deal with a deranged, highly unpredictable monster? He highly doubted that. No, she was some recruit ordered by some agency to bring him in, so they could use the Other Guy for their own ends. A pretty face intended to bat her eyelashes and make him feel at ease. He felt sick. "And your actress buddy? She a spy too? They start that young?"

A sad look lingered briefly on her face. Bruce felt his stomach curdle.
"Who are you?" 

"Natasha Romanoff."

He hadn't been expecting an answer. At least not a real name, and he stared solemnly at her for a few seconds, twisting his hands together.

"Are you here to kill me Miss Romanoff? 'Cause that's not gonna work out for everyone."
Miss Romanoff seemed almost amused by his question, "No, of course not. I'm here on behalf of SHIELD."

Bruce froze and gave a small nod as he tried to digest this new information. "SHIELD."
It really shouldn't have been a surprise; of course they were still trying to recruit him, to use the Other Guy. He bit the inside of his cheek, "How'd they find me?"