95- Avengers (1)

The next day, after preparing some things at home, Mason headed for the Helicarrier. He could guess that since they had given him a precise time, SHIELD intended for every prospective member of the Avengers to arrive at the same time.

Mason was tempted to arrive early, just to throw them off, but considering it was a ship on the ocean, he might just risk missing the Helicarrier entirely. Besides, he liked messing with Fury, but this felt like unnecessary trouble. Moreover, Mason was quite curious about his new teammates, so meeting them on Fury’s terms was not bad either.

As for the Helicarrier being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it was not a problem for Mason either. When gravity was low enough, stepping on water was not so different from stepping on land. And erasing the influence of gravity was much easier than artificially increasing it, so Mason moved just as easily on the ocean as he did on land.

Mason had also made some progress with his Gravity Dao since he had returned to New York, mostly thanks to his Gravity Room, so stepping on water was not that hard.

Actually, with the lack of obstacles, it might even be better than land.

As expected, the Helicarrier was exactly where it was supposed to be, and Mason even spotted one of their aircraft, a Quinjet, approaching, with Captain America’s Chi signature inside. And even with that distance, Mason noticed something different about him.

He had broken through to the Awakening Realm.

Mason was a little surprised, it seemed he had underestimated the Super Soldier Serum. Or was it Steve he had underestimated?

Landing softly on the Helicarrier, Mason ignored the gazes and watched the Quinjet landing with some fascination. The Quinjet was not landing like an aircraft normally would, and instead looked more like a large bird.

Though its wings were rigid, the rotors were in constant motion, guiding the Quinjet into a soft landing.

"I would have called it impressive, but you did just drop from the sky."

Mason turned to look at the red-haired woman who had just addressed him. He could guess her identity easily enough, but what intrigued him was that her Chi signature felt familiar.

Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "Have you been spying on me during my world tour?"

The woman smiled, replying, "I may have attended one of your early lessons, yes. Agent Natasha Romanoff."

Mason shook her hand firmly, replying, "There’s probably no need for me to introduce myself to you."

He looked over her shoulder to see a man examining a jet a little too closely, hiding himself away. The only man on this carrier who was not a soldier. Grinning, Mason called out, "Doctor Banner, don’t be shy!"

Bruce Banner’s shoulders sagged as he turned around and greeted awkwardly, "Mr. Tunt, hello."

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He walked over, radiating guilt, saying, "I wanted to apologize for-"

Mason patted his shoulder, still grinning, "There’s no need for that, Doctor Banner. You were not the master of your actions, nor was the Hulk, for that matter. Besides, it was a fun fight. Nothing quite got my blood pumping like that one ever since."

Banner looked weirded out and unsure of what to say, but Romanoff added helpfully, "There is no need to worry, Doctor Banner, he is being truthful. Also, Doctor Banner is only here in his capacity as a doctor, to help us find the Tesseract."

Mason nodded and said to Banner, "Really, there’s no need to feel guilty. And if you ever need any tips on meditation, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m easy to contact."

"I may take you up on that."

The Quinjet landed meanwhile, and Steve Rogers stepped out in his civilian attire. He first shook hands with Mason, smiling, "Mason, it’s been a while. How have you been?"

"Good, good. Helped people around the world, mostly. I see you’ve made some progress."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "I suppose I shouldn’t have expected to surprise you. But yes, I have broken through. I have been grinding hard."

Mason blanked at the last sentence that was so out of place, and so did the others. This caused Steve to feel a little awkward as he explained, "Dark Souls? I tried it, following your recommendation. I grinded."

Mason felt like laughing, but seeing how earnest Steve was, he patted his shoulder silently.

Steve tried to push the matter behind him also as he remarked, "You must have made some progress yourself. It was you flying in just now, right?"

It was Romanoff who corrected him, "Not flying, only absurdly long jumps."

Romanoff, Steve, and Banner introduced themselves to each other before the Helicarrier took off into the sky. Although Mason had known it was coming, it still looked impressive enough to see something of this size lift off.

The group then walked inside, with Natasha leading the way. As they did, Mason freely examined the place with his Divine Sense, taking in all those Agents. They were all above average, as far as the Three Treasures went, but they were not quite as impressive as the Hand, though.

After all, the Hand was all martial artists at the core, while SHIELD agents relied more on weapons. So they were infinitely more dangerous. And even then, that did not stop them from staring at their group with stars in their eyes, although Mason figured it had more to do with the Captain than himself.

When they arrived in the command room, Fury was standing on deck, giving orders as they floated through the sky, invisible to all beneath. Which was only fish, at the moment.

As they got in, Fury turned to them, "Thank you all for coming. The fate of the world might very well depend on you people."

Banner looked uncomfortable, not just with being here, but in his own skin in general. He constantly fidgeted, but he still replied, "And thank you for asking nicely. So I don’t mean to be rude, but how long am I staying?"

"Once we get the Tesseract back, you are free to go anywhere you like."

Banner looked happy with that, his frail body settling. "Good. Where are we with that?" It was something that struck Mason about Banner, his size. Obviously, even in the movies, the size difference between Banner and the Hulk had been monstrous, but that was mostly because of the size of the Hulk. But Banner always looked like an ordinary man.

This Banner did not. He was truly frail, his jacket a couple of sizes too large. It made the contrast with his Hulk form that much more striking.

To Banner’s question, Fury nodded towards an analyst below deck, who suddenly straightened up, saluting as he explained in a robotic voice, "Sir, we have access to every camera connected to WiFi in the world, running facial recognition on everyone in them for Loki or his known associates."

Mason, who already knew where Loki was meant to appear, since he remembered the movie, said, "That’s far from enough. Loki is capable of turning anyone to his side, and according to your file, those turned will not be losing any of their skills. I have already dealt with something like that. Considering he probably took several of your agents, Loki will know everything they know about your means of finding them."

The analyst lowered his head, and Fury said, "That is why we brought Doctor Banner here. What we need is not to find Loki, but the Tesseract."

Banner bit his finger, unconsciously opening his posture that had remained guarded so far. "I’ve been thinking of a solution on the way here. How many spectrometers does SHIELD have access to?"

"How many are there?"

The answer did not appear to surprise Banner. "Commandeer all the ones you can and have them placed on the roof. Calibrate them to Gamma rays, I’ll rough out a tracking algorithm, but I’ll need a team to write it out if we want to do this quickly. I assume you have some capable programmers."

Fury smiled, "The best in the world."

Banner took that seriously, humming as he doubted it, but he still followed Romanoff to his laboratory.