BRUCE BANNER leaned over his two young patients as their worried mother looked on. Calcutta was fraught with pestilence. But Bruce was intent on making sure that the children he was currently tending to would grow up to experience the world and, hopefully, make it a better place.
Calcutta suffered from a dearth of critical needs, such as freshwater, medicine, and other supplies. Unfortunately the one thing there was no shortage of was patients. Just as Banner was wrapping up his work, a young girl who couldn’t have been more than eight years old ran into the home.
“Stay away!” The mother cried out. “They’re sick!”
The girl explained that she was here because her father was sick in the same way. She burst into tears and continued the story as her voice broke with sorrow.
“He’s not waking up,” she told Banner. “He has a fever and is moaning, but his eyes won’t open.”
She held out the little bit of money she had and offered it to Bruce, pleading for his help. He didn’t accept the money, but still threw his supplies into his worn doctor’s bag and asked the girl to show him the way to her father.
They made their way through the nearly impenetrable Calcutta streets. The girl knew better than Bruce how to navigate the thick walls of people, but Bruce did his best to keep up with the girl, so as not to lose her.
They arrived at the very edge of town, which was a much less densely populated than the rest of the city. The girl led Bruce to a shack that stood apart from the others. It was even more severely dilapidated than the rest. She darted into the shack and Bruce, still trying to keep pace, followed right behind her.
Once inside the shanty, the girl rushed quickly onto a bed beneath a window. And then she slipped right through that window out of the room.
It took Bruce a few seconds to register what was going on, but then he realized what had happened. He’d been tricked.
A beautiful S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stood before him. The jig was up—they’d been looking for him for years, and now they had him.
The woman introduced herself as Natasha Romanoff.
“How did S.H.I.E.L.D. find me?” Banner asked.
“We never lost you,” Natasha responded. “I’m here, alone, on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. We need you to come in.”
Natasha said S.H.I.E.L.D. was aware it had been two years without an incident. They weren’t looking for the Hulk, they needed Bruce Banner. She explained that the Tesseract was stolen, possibly by a being once worshiped as a god. They needed to find it before he could use its power, but it was emitting gamma radiation that was too weak for any of their tools to trace. Bruce was the world’s leading expert on gamma radiation, and they needed that expert advice right now.
Banner didn’t believe it. He still thought that S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted the Hulk, not Banner.
“Stop lying to me!” he shouted with a vehement anger.
Natasha, who was not easily jarred, was startled out of her wits, bracing herself for Banner’s transformation into the Hulk.
Then Bruce began to laugh. “That was mean!” he said. “Couldn’t resist. What if I say no?”
“Then I will persuade you,” Natasha replied.
“What if the other guy says no?”
Bruce’s question met an uncomfortable silence as both he and Natasha considered what would happen if the Hulk decided that he didn’t want to go along with S.H.I.E.L.D. Finally, Bruce spoke up. “If Fury wants me, we both know he’s going to get me either way,” he said, agreeing to come along.
“The situation is contained,” Natasha said into her walkie-talkie.
“So we were alone, huh?” Bruce said.
Natasha shrugged while, outside, thirty-odd S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who’d surrounded the shack dropped their weapons.