Academy of Sciences?

Brazil, Rio Verde slums.

Natasha, wearing a black off-shoulder gown like an evening dress and draped in a mink shawl, strolled through the nearly deserted corner of the slums as if no one else existed.

Walking as though on a runway, she spoke to the air.

"Sri Lanka, Samba, Cape Town, and now Rio Verde, is it?"

After saying this, she listened carefully to the voice coming through her earpiece.

"Natasha, that giant has already mastered enough counter-tracking skills through constant entanglement with the military."

"No one could have guessed that he jumped into the sea from Sri Lanka and swam all the way to South America before coming ashore!"

"What a surprise. Besides Brazil, I still have at least six suspected locations to explore. I really appreciate the Intelligence Department's hard work!"

Natasha sneered in annoyance, then found a small, secluded house.

After paying the owner a fair amount of money, Natasha casually showed him the pistol holstered on the outside of her thigh.

With that, the owner abandoned any plans of robbing her and then taking advantage, and he prepared to leave with his daughter.

But somehow, looking at the pitiful little girl the owner was holding by the hand, Natasha seemed to see herself from years ago.

"Wait!"

She couldn't help but wave her hand, stopping the father and daughter.

"Let your daughter work for me. I'll give you enough money, but my only condition is that you never show up in front of your daughter again. Deal?"

With that, Natasha looked at the girl's face, which bore a few bruises.

The girl was stunned, then lowered her head deeply, her thin chin nearly touching her equally thin, malnourished chest.

"Damn American, this is my daughter! Not everything can be measured by money!"

The owner snarled viciously at Natasha, but after a dismissive laugh, she lifted her other leg out of the gown and showed it to him.

Holstered on that thigh were a submachine gun and a dagger.

A moment later, the owner broke into a grin, revealing his filthy teeth, and raised his right hand to Natasha, spreading five fingers.

"Gotta pay more!"

"Deal!"

And so, in Natasha's temporary residence in Brazil, she gained a hardworking little maid.

Three whole days passed...

Natasha scoured every suspected location where the Hulk might appear, and S.H.I.E.L.D. finally confirmed his true whereabouts.

He was in the Montevideo settlement, about eighty kilometers from the Rio Verde slums.

He had disguised himself as a doctor—or rather, he was working as one.

And soon, he would leave Montevideo and come to Rio Verde for a consultation.

So Natasha waited there.

During the wait, Natasha had a good talk with her little maid, now a S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee agent.

More than once, the girl's blunt words pierced Natasha's heart.

"Why did you buy me? I'm not a virgin. My first time was sold to a neighbor by my daddy two years ago."

"I don't know what I'm good at. Does crying count? I always like to hide and cry. That's what I'm best at."

"You say I'm an agent now, a trainee agent. So what do I need to do? Can I just live like this? This is too happy."

And faced with a girl like that, all Natasha could do was hug her and tell her.

"You don't need to be good at anything. Because that slightly sad look on your face can stop even the most terrifying monster!"

"So, you just need to be yourself!"

And tonight was the day for that little girl to be herself.

Bruce Banner never denied his luck.

He was the only one who had been irradiated by Gamma Rays and still lived.

But he also never denied his misfortune.

Even alive, he could only scrape by.

Immensely powerful, yet impossible to control.

To fight meant losing himself.

To retreat—well, that wasn't his call.

His proudest achievement in life was his research on Gamma Rays.

That was the key to the nightmare he now lived.

His Pandora's Box was built by his own hands and opened by himself.

Even hatred seemed to have no target left.

Because the man he hated most had given birth to the woman he loved most.

Wearing a tattered shirt and coat, treading on filthy, damp mud.

He carried a nearly broken medical kit, trudging without motivation through the crowded, chaotic slums.

Destruction—he had done it too many times.

Even if it wasn't what he wanted, he had still brought too much ruin.

And now, only saving others seemed to offer him some solace.

He entered the room, where a patient lay on a torn straw mat.

It was a middle-aged woman, her face marked with red, frostbite-like patches.

"Lupus erythematosus!"

He reached the conclusion in just a moment.

Yes, he practiced medicine. He had hoped that by saving others, he could reclaim his nearly numb heart.

But it was useless.

Because there were too many diseases in this world he couldn't cure, and too many people he couldn't save.

Like this woman before him, stricken with lupus erythematosus—she was too poor, her environment too harsh, the facilities too lacking. All she could do was wait to die.

Bruce Banner looked helplessly at the ceiling, his beard covering his face like wild weeds.

What else could he do?

Of course—visit the next patient.

"Hello, I... my mother... she's sick, she's vomited many times, hasn't eaten all day..."

It sounded like a little girl's voice, tinged with sobs. Banner turned in the direction of the sound.

It was a child—small, thin, with a slightly bloated belly indicating poor digestion, sallow skin from liver insufficiency, dull eyes, and hair full of dandruff. This girl had been malnourished for far too long.

Yet she was still holding out a small handful of the smallest-denomination currency toward him.

"Please, this is all the money I have, please!"

The girl's pleas echoed continuously as she shook the nearly rotting bills in her hand.

She shouldn't have been clutching those filthy bills, waving them around in this disgusting place.

She should have been holding a bouquet, on a sports field or at a basketball game, waving at a boy she admired.

Thinking this, a flicker of pity stirred in Bruce's heart.

He pondered for a moment, then said, "It's not about the money!"

Yes, it really wasn't about the money. Who would have the heart to take this girl's last coins?

Bruce Banner followed the girl, all the way to her home.

As he walked, his heart sank.

That place was too remote. No one would want to live there.

Especially the sick—patients in the slums preferred to lie in crowded areas, hoping to catch the pity of some benefactor to buy themselves a little more time.

But this place... was it what he suspected?

The girl opened the door. It was dark inside.

Bruce had barely reached the bedroom doorway when he saw the girl, who had entered before him, leap out the window like a monkey and escape.

Banner turned around knowingly. A woman in a black evening gown, draped in a mink shawl, with smooth red hair, was smiling at him gently.

The woman smiled, and so did Banner.

"If you're not her mother, or if you are, then that means the mother she mentioned isn't really sick, right?"

Banner asked, and Natasha nodded.

Seeing her hair sway up and down, Banner let out a long breath.

"Great. No one's sick. That's wonderful."

He laughed with unusual cheerfulness.

Somehow, that fleeting smile of Banner's filled Natasha with immense guilt.

But duty came first. Natasha hardened her heart.

"You don't need to be angry. We mean no harm—otherwise, it wouldn't be me coming to see you."

"So?" Banner asked, somewhat casually.

"Just the two of us—you and me. Can we talk?"

"Heh, maybe so, but don't do anything rash. I don't want this already scarred land to bear the cost of that guy!"

"OK!"

Natasha agreed readily.

Bruce assumed a posture of attentive listening.

"This time, no one's trying to capture you. I'm not some damn U.S. military agent—I work for S.H.I.E.L.D.!

For the past seventy years, S.H.I.E.L.D. has secretly saved the world countless times. We mainly deal with disasters that the real world can't handle.

Now we've run into trouble we can barely manage, and we need your strength!"

"No, you just need his strength!"

Bruce looked visibly annoyed. He loathed the power inside him, hated and feared the monster.

But that very monster was what made people appreciate him—and that wasn't the kind of appreciation he wanted!

His brilliance was unmatched by few in the world; after all, he'd once been the top professor of radiation science globally!

Yet now, his savage, hideous image was burying his true worth, and he refused to accept it!

For a moment, the veins on his neck began to tinge green.

In the Avengers movie, Bruce agreed to Natasha's invitation mainly because she gave a high-sounding reason: they needed his deep understanding of radiation science to track the Cosmic Cube Loki had taken.

That was recognition of him, not the monster!

Him!

Bruce Banner!

Not a monster!

Never!!!

"Fuck, damn it, Bruce, calm down. At least take a look at the info I'm giving you.

I get your frustration, but you have to admit—we're up against an uncontrollable beast.

We need another beast to counter it, but aside from that, the beast inside you is worthless to us.

On the other hand, your mind might help us find another way!

I believe in you. Calm down. You haven't lost control in seven months and eighteen days. Like you said yourself, don't hurt this land. Please!"

Under Natasha's relentless persuasion, Bruce barely managed to rein in his emotions.

Frowning, he took Natasha's phone.

A moment later, realization dawned.

On the phone, countless videos were playing.

Heisenberg descending from the sky, Heisenberg leaping into the air, Heisenberg flying at supersonic speed—his Heat Vision, Freeze Breath, and that crucial punch!

And of course, the moment he blew Kingpin's head off!

"He's different from you. Earth is your forever home, but he's just a passerby.

Super strength, super speed, supersonic flight, and his rays and breath—he's a true monster we can't stop.

Even if he has a body similar to ours, he's the real monster!

And you can see it—he's arrogant, petulant, rude, and cruel!"

As she spoke, Natasha extended her seemingly frail right hand toward the Hulk.

"We need you. Earth needs you, Bruce!"

Meanwhile, Coulson was kicked out of Stark Industries for the fourth time by the new manager, Pepper Potts.

Tony Stark's palladium poisoning was clearly severe. He obviously needed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help, and Coulson had come to offer it.

But with all this unable to be made public, Tony's arrogance meant he wouldn't even see him!

Even though Tony had reluctantly taken on the role of S.H.I.E.L.D. consultant.

It seemed Tony didn't give a damn about S.H.I.E.L.D. or his consultant title!

As Coulson trudged out of Stark Industries in frustration, he grumbled to himself.

Who the hell could drag that self-destructive Iron Man out of his hiding place?

At the same time, in Stark's lab, Miss Pepper Potts stormed in, displeased.

From across the room, she shouted at Tony.

"Over a dozen board members have filed to impeach me! My proposals were all your decisions, but you haven't said a single fair word for me!

I know you're Iron Man, but you're not just Iron Man. You can't pour all your energy into your armor—it'll make you miss so much!"

"Including the elf named Pepper by my side?"

"No, it's an invitation from an academy!"

"Oh?"

At Pepper's explanation, Tony looked up with a hint of confusion.

"Wasn't the Oxford Academy of Sciences invitation supposed to be next month? Which academy is this now?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't seem like a joke. The invitation was delivered by the New York Mayor."

Hearing this, Tony took the invitation and glanced at it.

After just a moment, he looked up with keen interest.

"I'd say this is a joke. The address on the invitation is in New York, and it's the top floor of the Brooklyn Golden Building. I've been to that godforsaken place!"

Tony burst out laughing as he spoke.

Still chuckling, he started tidying himself up.

"But even if it's a joke, I have to go see which genius would set an academy's invitation address in a nightclub."

"So, you've been there before?!"

Pepper Potts caught on instantly, and Tony felt a chill run down his spine.