Marvel Reborn: Gems Of Infinite Potential

Having brought Bruce onboard, it was time to start cleaning up loose ends. While he might be willing to overlook the knowledge that I was engaged in somewhat morally ambiguous antics, forcing him to face the more extreme of those antics could be dangerous. And so it was time to start cleaning up and capitalizing on the groundwork I had previously laid. It was approaching the time for the Pyms to experience a lab accident in their quest to save Janet from the Quantum Realm, but first to get the deception properly in place.

With that thought, I started the meeting. "Everyone, I would like you to introduce you to our newest team member, Dr. Bruce Banner. He is the world's foremost nuclear physicist with five doctorates in that area, in addition to his doctorates in biochemistry and medicine, and is coming to us from his role as lead scientist on the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project - the US government's latest human enhancement project. Given the breadth of his areas of study and noted intelligence, his cell will be primarily focused on a cross-disciplinary analysis of all of our other work, with an eye towards practical technologies that fully exploit our entire tech base. He will also be working with you, Maya, on more fully understanding the full ramifications of his own enhancements.

"Bruce, the team. Dr. Maya Hansen, our head of human enhancement research and the Extremis Cell. I'm sure the two of you will get along famously, and that you two have much to teach each other.

"I'm sure that Dr. Hank Pym needs no introduction, but he leads the Pym cell with his daughter, Hope, and her fiance, Dr. Darren Cross. Dr. Pym has discovered and made practical the use of what we call Pym Particles. These allow you to reduce the distance between atoms and shift mass into the Quantum Realm - taking it from a certainty to a probability that can be controllably manipulated." Natasha, in her armor, took the opportunity to shrink to ant-size and then return.

"As demonstrated by Natasha Romanoff, our head of security and primary field operative.

"Next to her, we have Dr. Anton Vanko and his son Dr. Ivan Vanko. Anton was a close associate of Howard Stark's before some unpleasantness led to them parting ways, and he returned to Russia. His cell is focused on realizing various projects that the two of them co-developed and theorized about, but could not make practical due to the technology of the day.

"Last, and most definitely not least, we have myself. I handle our metaphysical research and our research into vibranium. Be warned, I will be pushing as much of the latter off onto your shoulders as you can stomach," I finished the introductions.

Bruce said, "A p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e everyone," before turning to Dr. Pym, "and I'm glad to see that reports of your death have been exaggerated, Hank. If you don't mind my asking, how did you end up here?"

"Good to see you too, Bruce. I caught your lecture on gamma ray-induced metallic alloys at Harvard back in 2003 but didn't get a chance to speak with you. I had some thoughts, we should talk later. To answer your question though, it seems that HYDRA isn't quite as dead as everyone thought, and they tried to kidnap my daughter to force me to work for them. Unfortunately for them, they seem to have forgotten that I was a SHIELD operative for a decade and don't take threats to my family lightly. Sadly, I'm too old to be dealing with fieldwork personally and so I contracted Natasha here to, remove, the offenders.

"She succeeded, of course, but with HYDRA, there are always other cells, and I was just buying time. When I asked her about disappearing, she put me in contact with Octavian here, and we cut a deal." Hank spun the story that Kilgrave forced him to and the same one that everyone but Natasha, Maya, and the Kilgrave team had been told.

Bruce glanced at Natasha. "He contracted you?"

She smiled and gave a slight bow of the head. "Octavian was being polite when he called me a field operative. A secret branch of the KGB took me as a young girl and trained me for years as a spy, infiltrator, and assassin. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the program was slightly modified, but I performed much the same work for the FSB, only to find out that my handler was selling my services to the highest bidder. When management found out they sanctioned us both, I proved myself better than the kill teams sent to carry out my retirement, and so I went independent. Being the world's best assassin paid well, but when Octavian offered me a cause worth serving, I accepted without regret."

Bruce looked shocked before quietly saying, "Oh."

In the end, Bruce fit in quite well, especially after Betty accepted a job with Raith Industries and ended up working under Maya. Those two became fast friends.

It was tragic that a mere eight months after he joined us, we were betrayed by one of our own. It seems that the Vanko's were really HYDRA sleeper agents sent to infiltrate my labs, but they had failed to account for our Martian location. But they persevered and thought they had come up with a way to use Pym Particles and the Quantum Realm to teleport back to Earth. The two of them had helped Dr. Pym with one of his experiments to rescue Janet, but when Pym realized the modifications that they had made to the device and that it would take the whole facility Quantum regardless of whether or not it teleported the Vankos home, he acted expeditiously to limit the damage. It was a tragic loss that Dr. Pym, his daughter, his future son-in-law, and five members of his team went Quantum with the entire lab and both Vanko's.

That Dr. Banner had finished learning about Pym Particles from Dr. Pym and learned a lot from the Vankos was merely fortuitous luck.

And if ten people in stasis tubes happened to show up in a vault on Elara that no one else knew existed, well, that was pure coincidence.