First Meeting

It was already afternoon the next day when Nick Fury finally contacted Fanny. Fanny had spent the meantime bringing Skye to their parents and spending time with them.

"You already found Loki?" Fanny asked in surprise when he arrived at SHIELD's base. But he then realized that Loki was at a disadvantage this time. The god of mischief was forced to retreat before taking control of Hawkeye and other SHIELD agents and scientists.

Loki had nobody covering for him from within SHIELD. Besides, with his arrogance and dismissive attitude toward Earth, he wouldn't even think about hiding. It's no surprise that SHIELD could find him so quickly.

Nick Fury nodded. "Yeah, but it was a little troublesome. I have assembled a response team, let's go meet them first!"

"The Avengers?!" Fanny frowned as he blurted the name of the team. Thinking about it, the only member of the Avengers that he hadn't met was Thor. Well, he hadn't "met" Captain America either; he had only seen the man.

Nick Fury nodded again.

Nick Fury brought Fanny to a Quinjet. Fanny carefully examined the internal structure of the aircraft; he felt that he needed to learn about planes and spaceships after he was trapped on Vormir.

It wasn't long until they arrived on Nick Fury's prized Helicarrier. Fanny saw a couple of familiar figures as soon as he got off of the Quinjet.

"Long time no see!" Fanny greeted the two of them.

"Where have you been?" Despite having received the intel package yesterday, Tony still hadn't confirmed it himself. He sighed in relief when he finally saw Fanny in front of him.

"It's a long story. How have you been all this time?" As Fanny and Tony spoke, they also looked at Banner. Banner's temperament had become more gentle and refined. Nobody would think that he was even able to be angry.

"Other than that guy throwing a tantrum because he wanted to go find you, everything is fine." Banner shrugged. He was also happy with Fanny's return since Fanny was the only existence that he knew could control Hulk. During the past half year, he had tried all sorts of things in his experiment to separate or eliminate Hulk, but none of them had succeeded.

All of that effort only worsened the balance in the relationship between Banner and Hulk. Without Fanny around, Banner's life had been horrible.

Fanny noticed the bitterness in Banner's eyes. He had some ideas about what that meant, but with so many people around, he couldn't say much. He simply nodded at Banner.

After greeting his two familiar friends, Fanny turned to the other person with a strong presence nearby.

"Hello, Captain America. It wasn't my first time seeing you, but my name is Fanny Helsed. You can call me Fanny." Fanny approached Captain America while removing his 'Demon Armor Incursio,' offering his hand to the Captain. Almost everyone in the room knew his identity anyway, so he was too lazy with the dance of secrecy.

Captain America was utterly stunned when he saw Fanny's armor disappear. He accepted Fanny's hand. "I'm Steve Rogers. I know you; thank you for bringing me back."

"You're welcome!" Fanny shrugged and replied indifferently. He then noticed Black Widow and Hawkeye, who had been staring at him since he removed 'Demon Armor Incursio.' "I know I'm very handsome, but don't you think you're staring too much?"

Barton immediately turned his head away in embarrassment, but Black Widow simply raised her eyebrows and approached Fanny. "I didn't expect you to look like this under your armor. Let me introduce myself again. Natasha Romanov, agent of Shield!"

"How come you never expect anything?" Fanny rolled his eyes. "Remember not to reveal my identity."

Barton snapped out of his embarrassment and also approached Fanny. "We already introduced ourselves a few months ago, but I don't know if you still remember. I'm Clint Barton, an agent of SHIELD."

"My memory is not that bad." Fanny then gave the same warning to Barton.

Nick Fury was absolutely stunned that Fanny introduced himself with his real identity. Nick Fury felt that Fanny had started to open up to him and might even join the Avengers.

Fanny didn't think that much about it. After spending too much time on Vormir, he would even talk to the beggars on the street. Nick Fury was overthinking things as usual.

"Well, now that everyone knows each other, should we discuss how to deal with Loki and retake the Tesseract!" Nick Fury stood up after Fanny finished getting acquainted with everyone.

Nobody in the room spoke after Nick Fury; they simply looked at each other.

Nick Fury had briefed Fanny about the general situation on the Quinjet. Loki had failed to take control of Barton, but he had used some unknown method to control Erik Selvig. Without Barton's strategies, though, Loki could not carry out the deceptions he had made in the original plot.

Instead, the god of mischief had taken over a small country that Fanny had never heard of and used their resources to study the Cube.

Fanny was pretty shocked when he heard of this information. This might mean that New York might not turn into a battlefield even if Loki succeeded in opening the portal. But Fanny still wanted to prevent Loki from opening the portal in the first place.

"Can't we just sneak in and capture him?" Banner finally broke the silence, being the least informed about combat and the situation.

"Dr. Banner, the intel suggested that he has the ability to teleport, in addition to mind control," Nick Fury explained, subconsciously glancing at Fanny. Fighting with Loki could be an opportunity to test countermeasures against Fanny. "Thus, our first strike is critical. It might be impossible to capture him if we failed and made him vigilant."

"I see!" Banner obediently closed his mouth. He never wanted to come to this meeting in the first place. His many years on the run had engraved deep distrust and prejudice against the government. Tony's invitation was the only reason he had come here.

Before they could come up with any plan of action, Hill's report suddenly came from Nick Fury's headset. "Director, we detected an anomaly in the atmosphere!"

Nick Fury frowned and seemed to think of something. He looked at Fanny and asked, "Did you say that Thor would come to Earth?"

"Yes!" Fanny was a little surprised at the sudden question and subconsciously nodded. Thor only had one younger brother. The god of thunder wouldn't let his younger brother wander around unchecked, even if he didn't really know what Loki was planning.

"He might be coming already!" Nick Fury said in a deep voice, "We can't let him alert the enemy!"