There were still plenty of Hydra members operating out there. In his normal state, Banner was just an ordinary man. If Hydra subdued him and gained control of Hulk, it would pose a tremendous threat.
In the past, keeping Banner at S.H.I.E.L.D. would certainly have made people think they intended to imprison him and keep him under surveillance.
But now that Hydra's existence had been exposed, S.H.I.E.L.D. really was doing this to protect him.
Nick Fury had taken Mercer's words to heart. Banner and Hulk should become a major asset to them, not a menace.
"Banner's no problem. He's easy to talk to and very gentle. Hulk's the tricky one. He's strong, but not very bright. Once he gets angry, all he does is smash, smash, smash. Letting someone like that wander around outside really is dangerous."
Stark rarely praised anyone else.
With his six doctorates, Banner had quite a bit in common with Stark in certain areas, and Stark was happy to talk to him.
Mercer nodded. "Leave him a message. If he has time now, have him come over. I'll see if I can help him sort out the problem with his body, too."
"Can that really be fixed? If Banner could control the Hulk inside him whenever he wanted, he'd really have both brains and brawn."
Stark was a little surprised. This involved biology, which he knew little about, and he wanted to see how Mercer planned to handle it.
"I don't think it should be too difficult, but I'll have to wait until he gets here to know for sure."
While the two spoke, JARVIS took the initiative to contact Banner.
At a S.H.I.E.L.D. base.
"Banner, how's the Artificial Tesseract coming along?" Nick Fury walked up beside Banner and looked ahead.
Before him sat a cube