Rising from the Ashes

Test Time

AN- Sorry it's been a while for the few of you actually reading this story, but school can be a pain when it comes to free time

3rd Person POV

Steve, Bruce, and Ash were escorted below deck into the main bridge where SHIELD agents were seen working on computers and Agent Hill was alerting Nick Fury,

"We're at lock, sir."

"Good. Let's vanish."

From the outside, the light reflection panels activated and rendered the whole Helicarrier invisible.

"Gentlemen and miss." Fury directed toward Steve, Bruce, and Ash.

As Steve was pulling out 10 dollars to give to Fury, Bruce and Ash started walking around the bridge, but were discouraged from leaving by two armed soldiers at the exit. Fury walked over to the two and told Bruce,

"Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh... how long are we staying?" Bruce asked nervously, keeping Ash close.

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."

"Where are you with that?" Fury turned to another man by a computer to answer that question.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us." Phil Coulson reported from his position by one of the computers, where Ash noticed that Natasha was looking at a photo of a man with an intense glare as she told them,

"That's still not gonna find them in time."

"You have to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?" Bruce asked them.

"How many are there?"

"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr.Banner to his laboratory, please." Fury directed Natasha and she nodded before leading them away.

"You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys." Natasha told him as they walked off the bridge and into a hallway.

"This is your lab for now." Natasha gestured to a room that had all sorts of equipment in it.

"Thanks."

"Kid, you're gonna need to come with me to the Med Bay."

"What?" Bruce questioned.

"They need to see just how stable she is before they just let her leave."

"Oh no no no you are not experimenting on her." Bruce stood in front of Ash protectively.

"We just need to make sure that she won't," Nat mimicked an explosion with her hand before continuing, "if we just let her walk out of here."

"I'll be... OK." Ash assured Bruce somewhat hesitant as she came out from behind.

"I'll be there with her the whole time." Nat told them as Ash walked over to her and they left Bruce to work before he could argue anymore.

As they walked down the long hallway, Ash looked up at Nat and asked,

"Who was that man on the screen?"

"He's an agent who's been compromised by Loki." Nat answered stiffly.

"Who is he to you? I can tell he means something to you."