Chapter 36: Mistakes

Five days of training, eating, Supernatural, and everything in between later. What do you guys think? Was that a good way to tell you it's been five days? I think it was good, but yeah five days... Making a total of seven days at Avengers Tower... A whole week... Yeah, that's all I'll say about that. But like I said it was spent training, with the Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Spider Man, spending more meals with everyone, and yes everyone, asking how days went, then watching more Supernatural with Steve. We're actually almost done with season two and Peter decided to watch with us too. It was really... nice. Okay, yes I actually enjoyed spending time with Steve and Peter watching one of my favorite shows and watching Steve freak out over the boys and Peter remembering everything, and Steve trying to explain things to Tony who just rolls his eyes and... Okay I'm gonna stop... Oh shut up! And wipe that stupid smirk off your face! Yeah, I'm talking to you reader! (Cause, ya know, screw 4th walls.) Oh, whoo, okay, I'm good. Sorry for my little outburst there.

"Hey Jade!"

"Hmm, oh hey Natasha." I say dropping the magazine I was "reading" on the counter. "What's up?"

"Well," Natasha says leaning across from me on the counter. "You clearly have the physical ability to be an agent and Clint was pretty impressed with your archery skills." Oh, yeah, Big Bird and I shot some arrows at stuff too. "But if you want to be a full agent you'll have to complete your file." Natasha finishes.

"Oh okay... What exactly goes in a file?" I ask.

"Physical qualities, skill level, psych evaluation, specific skills, and this is the part that I'm hesitant about, lifestyle."

"Lifestyle? I live with 7 superheroes, you tell me what kind of lifestyle that is." I say.

She smiles but continues to say, "No, it's more of how you grew up."

"Your past. SHIELD wants a background check, but because I'm so amazing at covering up my trail you need me to tell you about it." I say.

"Correct." Natasha says.

I sigh. "Natasha, no matter how much vomit comes to my mouth when saying this, we're sadly very similar. And that's not an insult to you, more of to myself... But that's not the point. You don't need to bullshit me, ever. And I won't ever bullshit you because I know you can handle it. Anywho, what's say we begin tearing into my past and digging through all the emotional toil with it?" I hop off the stool and say, "So where we doing this?"

"Okay, didn't think it'd be that easy. Why don't we head to my floor." Natasha says walking around the counter and to the elevator. Okay, here goes, hopefully I can actually do this. We enter the elevator and Natasha pushes the 85th floor button. As the lift clings, we stand in silence, so naturally I decide to break it.

"I can just type my own background, right?" She purses her lips and glances at me.

"As long as you're truthful. I can work on your skill asset and get Bruce started on your psych eval." The doors open and without Tony to hurriedly shut the doors, I can actually see the floor, that is if you could call it that. There's a dimly lit, shallow hall that has the right wall break out into another hall and the left wall has a lone, closed door. Natasha walks out and opens the door. I follow her, but look down the hall to see that separate training room Tony mentioned. After walking in her room and looking around at all the black furniture with red and white detailing. It's set up similarly to mine, but rather than the bed being in the middle of the all, it's closer to the far right wall, with windows that are as tall as the room next to it. All the curtains are pulled closed, so I stay in the doorway, but Natasha strides across the room, around her bed and launches the curtains away from her, releasing sunlight into the room. As she turns around, she pulls the neck of what I thought was just a decorative case, but die to her action, the room ignites in holograms and screens. I step into the room, closing the door behind me, but don't take my eyes off of the graphics floating around me.

"Agent protocol A." Natasha says walking over to me.

"Really, that's it?" I ask in mock-disbelief. "What, no long ass string of letters and numbers?"

"Well it's not like having a long ass string of letters and numbers would have kept you from commenting." Natasha says as the holograms follow her command. I shrug in agreement to her rebuttal. "But yes. A new agent file was the first program SHIELD attached to the term 'Agent.'" Natasha answers while sifting through the pixels. She pulls up a page that has 'Background' written across the top of it and chucks it to the other side of the room saying, "There you go." I walk over to it as Natasha walks to her bed. She then pulls up that skill evaluation she mentioned earlier. Deciding I don't want to be able to read what she writes about me, I turn my back to her. I pull a keyboard up in front of me. (Told you I knew how to work this thing) and begin typing. "You can have the voice to text up, if you'd like. Probably make things go faster." Natasha says. I stop typing and turn to see her settled on her bed with her own keyboard and before I can bring that up, she adds on, "I can't let you read this until Fury reviews it."

"Thank you, but typing is a more robotic function, so I shouldn't get too hung up on... certain things." I say with a smile.

She nods as I turn but says, "Oh and make sure to write in third person."

With a dry laugh I say, "Well that'll make it a tad easier. It'll be more like I'm writing a story, rather than my life." *Queue The Office or Supernatural camera glare.* Boom baby! Told ya, I'd come back with that one. Ah, that felt good. Anywho, I decide to pop a squat on the floor rather than stand around. The keyboard follow me and I feel Natasha staring at my back in confusion. I twist to see my suspicion correct and simply say, "Yeah, it's going to take this long."

She smirks and says, "Tell me about it." I crack my knuckles and begin typing, starting with the simple things like my birthday and place.

Jade Guinevere Sawyer, born April 26, 1988 in Dinan, France.

Then I go into the plain aspects of my growing u. You know, before the whole HYDRA thing.

Taking music lessons from her mother and dance lessons from her neighbor Jade had a relatively normal childhood. Although having a father always off in war, Jade still managed and it was the stories Jade's father brought back with him that kept her faithful. For the first 10 years of her life, it was simple, easy. But then, everything changed when the fire nation attacked.

Okay, that's a joke, backspace, backspace, backspace, but come on. If I can't laugh at this I'm handing things all wrong.

But on October 13, 1998 a secret terrorist organization, HYDRA, raided Dinan.

After I type HYDRA, I automatically links, I'm assuming to all that information I've been reading. Which, by the way I'm almost done with. And may I just say, holy shit do they got a lot going on. Or did...

Jade had been separated from her parents by Jared White and was sold to a textile factory as a child laborer. Her first year of slavery was not as awful as one might think. She did as she was told, not knowing any better at age 10. The following year Jade was sold again to ta plantation farm where her endeavors would really begin. The next two years consisted of labor and abuse. At age 13, Jade was taken away from the plantation by Jared White. He took Jade to a facility, still unknown, and introduced her to a scientist who would perform experiments on her.

"So I'm putting everything down? Like everything everything." I say getting caught in my typing.

I hear Natasha chuckle a bit before saying, "Yes Jade. Everything everything." I sigh, letting my lips trap the air and forcing them to kinda make that horse lip, snort... thing. Natasha makes another form of laughter, while I just sigh again. After about 6 minutes, I think, I didn't count this time, of me staring at the holographic keyboard, Natasha clears her throat. "Well I'm done with this skill evaluation, so I think I'll go get Bruce started on your psych eval."

"That was quick." I comment looking at her as she closes the file and walks towards the door.

"We've been in here for almost 30 minutes." Natasha says, stopping and looking at me.

"Oh..." I say looking down. Okay, maybe more than 6 minutes...

"Kay, well, head down to the lab when you're done." She strolls out the door giving a soft bang as she closes i. Well not I'm alone with my thoughts...

"Not entirely alone, Jade." Jarvis says over the intercom.

"Thanks J." I say with a small, but forced smile. This psych eval is going to go great.

*Bruce's POV*

"What if you squared the equation?" Susan asks. For the past week, I've enlisted hers, Dr. Richards, and Tony's help in energy tracing. Normally, I'd have no problem, like with the tesseract, but the details Fury gave me are... more complex. Crossing my arms, I think about Susan's proposal, doing the math in my head.

"That wouldn't supply enough power."

"What if..." Reed stops himself from continuing as Natasha walks in.

"Sorry for interrupting. Susan, Reed would you mind giving Bruce and I a minute?" She asks. They both shake their heads exiting as Natasha stands across form me. "Where's Tony? Shouldn't he be helping with this?"

"He wanted to take Pepper out. What's going on?" I ask taking off my glasses and slipping them into my shirt pocket.

"I need you to set up a psych eval for Jade." She says folding her hands on the counter in between us.

"So Fury is allowing her to become an agent?" I ask accessing Jade's SHIELD file.

"If she passes." Natasha says.

"Well you've given her a glowing skill evaluation." I say skimming though Natasha's review.

"She deserves it. I haven't noticed one weakness in her fighting and her weapons spectrum is one of the broadest I've seen."

"Makes you wonder how HYDRA trains." I say flipping through the different pages. Once I hit her history though, I stop. "She's typing her own background?" I ask in disbelief.

"She insisted."

"You really think that's a good idea?"

"I doubt she'd lie, what would the point be?" I nod in agreement as I scan what she's already typed. After a minute of me reading Natasha joins my side.

"Her life before all this really was rather unpleasant." I say folding my arms.

"All of ours were." Natasha says with a blank expression.

"But this, this was only when she was 14." I say pointing to the screen that describes the torture Jade went through.

"Bruce, we've all-"

"No Natasha. She was right. Jade's tried explaining to us what happened but none of us know what really went on. Yes we've all gone through our own battles, we've had years to deal with them, but right when Jade thinks sh'es done, all of it comes back. The unanswered questions she has resurface and only a portion of them receive answers. We've all learned how to turn out problems into advantages and Jade thinks... thinks..."

"Jade thinks by not telling anyone all of this none of her disadvantages and weaknesses will show." Natasha verbalizes what I was working towards. "And you said you weren't that kind of doctor." Natasha says. I smile weakly at her comment while closing Jade's file.

"Shall we get started on her psychological evaluation?" I ask.

"That's what I'm worried about." Natasha says.

"You really don't think she'll pass?" I say searching through the system.

Natasha sighs. "I personally doubt she's mentally unstable, but... We've all been proven wrong by facts before. This might be when Jade is." I contemplate what she says.

Before answering, I pull Jade's file again. I skim her background, which appears to be another year deeper, and confirm what I prayed I hadn't read earlier. "I think Jade proved the facts wrong with her 5th time being resurrected." I say leaning on the counter and look down.

"What?" Natasha says turning towards the screen.

"Jade said one of the leaders of HYDRA didn't want her dead, right?" I ask, not looking up. Natasha only nods as she reads. "That means they didn't let her die. She wasn't even 16 and she died and was brought back to life 5 times." I understand now why Steve and Peter tense as she explains what happened to her. Natasha looks away from the screen and, noticing my stress, places her hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, you can be mad all you want about this and Lord knows her best friend is." She says calmly. "But you don't see Bug Boy making a big deal out of it. And that's because Jade doesn't want him to and doesn't want to upset her. She doesn't want us to be worrying about her. Maybe that's why she doesn't want to tell us, I don't know. But she doesn't want anyone, especially you, getting angry or upset, over her." I take deep breath after Natasha's words. She's right. I shake my head and return to the evaluation. Natasha removes her hand from my shoulder and places it back on the tale as she continues reading along as Jade types.

*1 hour later*

"Okay, I think she's almost done."

"I'll get the helmet ready." I reply to Natasha, walking away from the screen we've been looking at for the past hour.

"Yup, she just closed everything." Natasha confirms, closing her screen as well. "She should be down soon." And as if on cue, Jade walks through the doors.

"Alrighty let's get this psych show on the road." Jade says.

"Come take a seat on this counter." I say, still fiddling with the helmet; making sure it's properly connected to the system.

"Okay." She says while hopping up on the counter next to me. "Remind me next time to sit somewhere over there." She says pointing across the room. I smile, remembering the other two times Jade has been in my lab.

But before I begin, I clear my throat, as well as wipe my smile away. "You'll need to sit here for a little over an hour with this on." I begin holding the helmet that is connected to the computers through several chords. "As you do that, this helmet will be, basically scanning your brain, making sure there's plenty of everything you need and not too much of everything you don't. From that I'll be able to diagnose your mental health." I explain while placing the helmet on Jade's head.

"And if everything checks out, I can finish your file and Fury will review everything." Natasha puts in.

"Comfortable?" I ask after adjusting the helmet.

"Yup." Jade confirms.

"One more thing. No talking. Your vocal chords will disrupt the signal and give back false data."

"So I'll be sitting here for over an hour, unable to talk?" Jade asks.

"Yes."

She blows several strands of hair out of her face before saying, "Alright come on then, fire me up." I press the sequence of buttons required for powering the helmet and then a picture of Jade's brain appears on the screen with a percentage of progress.

"Okay Jade, no talking. I'll tell you when the scan is complete." I say looking past the screen at Jade as she give me a thumbs up. Just then Natasha's phone goes off, drawing both mine and Jade's attention to her.

"Steve needs me. Let me know her results." She says looking at me and walking out of my lab. I look back to Jade, who is staring right back. She looks down as if thinking, so I go back to the screen. After a couple of seconds, I hear snapping though. I look up to see Jade doing something with her hands. I squint, trying to figure out what she's doing. She repeats the same hand motions again and I remember she said she was fluent in many languages.

"I'm sorry I don't speak sign language, if that's what that is." I say. She frowns, but nods, confirming she was signing. She quickly looks back at me, I'm guessing because she has another idea. She motions with her hand as if she were writing. "Do you want a pen and paper?" I ask. She smiles and taps her nose with one hand and pointing at me with the other. I chuckle at her method of asking, but go to my desk and grab her a blank note pad and pen. I hand her both and she smiles while she takes her right hand up to her mouth and gestures out to me. She looks back down, but quickly looks back up to see my confusion and allowing me to see her wide, blue eyes. She holds up her left index finger while uncapping the pen. She quickly scribbles something on the paper, then holds it up to me and grins.

Thank you.

I smile and say, "You're welcome." She smiles bigger while bringing the pad back to her lap. I walk to a counter to Jade's left and lean on it. Taking off my glasses. "So I take it, you've been in situations where you can't talk before?" Her eyes go wide as she looks back up nodding. "Is that how you learned sign language?"

She shakes her head no and begins writing. She holds the pad up for me. There was a mute child in the plantation farm. He and I were the same age, so we stayed together.

"So you originally learned it in French?" She nods. "Any other languages?"

German, Russian.

"Clint knows sign language. He also speaks French fluently. Wouldn't surprise me if you two went sneaking around, mumbling or signing to each other." I say.

She smiles and then writes something else. Do you speak any other languages?

"Hindi and Urdu." I say. She furrows her brow and tilts her head to the side. "I traveled through India for a sizable amount of time." I explain. She raises her eyebrows in surprise at me and motions for me to continue. "After Harlem, I figured I should separate myself from... stresses."

Jade appears to think for a moment the writes. Well that's a hell of a separation. What did you do all the way out there?

"I wanted to help people, so I took some medicine and equipment out there and helped who I could." She smiles at me. It's one of the easiest and simplest things, but it makes me smiles as well. "Do you speak and Hindi or Urdu?" I ask walking to the screen that shows the coverage of her brain. She holds up her index finger and thumb slightly spaced apart, indicating she knows some. I nod while checking the screen. "Already at 14%." I say. She gives me another thumbs up. As I begin working with information available, Jade looks around the room. After a few minutes, I can feel her gaze back on me. I look up at her and say, "Yes?"

She looks flustered for a minute, but then writes. You know the Hulk is awesome right?

I scoff slightly at reading that. "Maybe to the eye, but he... let's say he's a handful."

She purses her lips, but goes back to writing. I'm sure he's more than a handful. But I'm serious, the entire concept of the Hulk is mind boggling.

"I'm sure it appears that way but..." I begin but Jade goes right back to writing.

I don't care if there are side effects to him. You should be proud of what you created, no one else could have done that.

"He was a mistake!" I shout. Before I can apologize Jade throws the entire note pad at me.

NO. HE. WASN'T. Is written across a single page. I look back to Jade to see her sitting on the counter with a stern expression towards me.

I hand her back the notepad and say, "I'm sorry."

Her face softens, but she still flips the page to write. Think about it. If it weren't for the Hulk, you wouldn't be here. And here is incredible. You're surrounded by people who care about you, people who love you. Because of the Hulk, you now have a family again, and albeit the strangest I've witnessed, it's an amazing family. And he's not a mistake. An error yes, but not a failure. Without the Hulk you wouldn't have gone to India and helped people, you wouldn't have saved the world. Without the Hulk you wouldn't be Bruce Banner. And quite frankly, Bruce Banner is way too outstanding for me to be able to write it all down. After reading what Jade wrote, I look back up at her. She's sitting on the table, legs crossed, head down, and looking at her hands. I place the paper next to her, drawing her attention back to me.

"You're much more insightful than you think." I say.

She rolls her eyes while grapping the pad. So I've been told.

I can practically hear the sarcasm as I read. "It's true." I say walking back to the monitor. Again she rolls her eyes while shaking her head in disbelief. I drop it, assuming Jade doesn't enjoy talking about herself, even though she's not actually talking, from Natasha's comment earlier. "30%" I say while looking at the screen. Jade nods and begins what I thought was writing, but after a couple minutes of her not showing me, I guess she's drawing. When she asks for the green sharpie on my desk, I confirm my guess. Over the next 40 minutes, Jade spares the occasional glance my way, but doesn't write anything. *** "Alright Jade, 98%." She doesn't look up, just continues looking at the paper and nods. She seems to have finally accepted what she's drawing compared to the 14 crumpled up papers surrounding her. She does, however, look up when the doors open.

"Hey." Peter says as he walks next to Jade. She waves to him with the pen still in her hand and then goes back to her drawing. I nod to him while going over the data. "Natasha said you should be close to done and Steve really wants to watch the last 3 episodes of season 2." Peter says looking at Jade. She doesn't look up, just points to me. Peter looks to me.

"99%"

"Will she be able to go after 100?" Peter asks.

"Yes. After I look through the data, Fury will have Jade Leiton's file." A buzzer goes off, indicating the evaluation is at 100% and Jade lets out a sigh while taking off the helmet.

"Technically Jade Sawyer's file, but details, details. Now, to the Winchesters!" Jade shouts pointing her finger at the door and running out with Peter. I chuckle at the two's antics. Tony's right, they're adorable.

Seconds later, Jade bolts back in and rushes to me, wrapping her arms around my torso in a hug. I stumble slightly at her embrace, but once I regain my footing, I return the gesture. "You're awesome. Every last bit of you, remember that." She says into my chest.

"I will." I say as Jade pulls away and looks up at me with a smile. And with that she runs back out the doors and down the hall. I can't help but smile as I watch her go. As I look back to the monitor though, I see she left the notepad, along with her drawing. I walk around the table and pick it up, examining the pater. It's a green silhouette of the Hulk with a smaller, black silhouette of me in the middle. I smile shaking my head at the thought of the Hulk being a piece of art and return to the screen. After only 2 minutes of reading, I notice something... different... "Jarvis?"

"Yes, Dr. Banner?"

"I want you to report Jade as having 100% mental health and stability in her file and then shut down form the lab until morning." I say walking to my desk.

"As you wish Doctor." Jarvis says while I take my personal laptop off my desk and back to the table that is displaying Jade's evaluation. In the corner of the screen, Jarvis prepares Jade's file and I insert a flash drive to the monitor. "Will that be all Dr. Banner?"

"Yes, I'll see you in the morning." I hurriedly say while downloading the information to the flash drive and deleting if off of the towers computer. Once that's done, I transfer it to my laptop, then leave the flash drive in a desk drawer, under several papers. I continue looking over Jade's data, double checking what I saw. . . . There is no way someone that wise, brilliant in general, cunning, someone with an IQ of 156 could possibly have a fault with their psychological evaluation. So why does Jade?

A/N: Heyyyyy... So I'm not gonna go on giving you all my excuses for being gone so long, but I will just say, I've had a hectic past few weeks... But here's an update! And a longer one at that! Before I go on, I wanted to tell you guys that I will be going on a trip this Friday, 6/19. I'll been gone for about 3 weeks, but I will be bringing my laptop so hopefully I will still be able to give you guys an update while I'm gone.

But now, the chapter! What do you think? Did I do Bruce justice? Were Jade's talks with both Natasha and Bruce satisfying? I hope they were... The picture attached is of Natasha's room.

Okay that's it! Please tell me what you think in the comments and don't forget to vote!! 

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