—chapter one:
bad things come
in threes (or fours)

"WHAT'S UP, DOC?"

At the ripening age of 35, Jackson met Dr. Bruce Banner for the first time.

She was a Chemistry professor at Harvard and just after the lecture let out, he walked in while she was getting all of her papers together and packing everything up before calling it a day. It had been one of those days where everything just seemed to drag on and all Jackson wanted to do was go home. Turning around to head for the door, she looked up to make sure no one was in her way before stumbling back in surprise at who was standing in front of her. She wouldn't say that rugged would be the right word to describe him, but disheveled—which was her next best word—would be insulting. But anyone who didn't find him attractive needed to get their eyes checked.

"Dr. Banner!" Jackson squeaked, "What a surprise to see you! Big fan."

Bruce let out a little laugh before reaching his hand out for her to shake it, which she did enthusiastically (Bruce was perplexed by her wearing leather gloves inside but he let the observation slide). "And you're Jackson Edwards. Yeah, I read some of your work and I have to say that I'm impressed."

Jackson beamed, but her face then fell at the minute shifts in Bruce's face. He promptly cleared his throat and lowered his voice to say, "I did some digging and turns out, you meddled around and tried to recreate the Super Soldier Serum?"

"I swear, I tossed all that out and shredded all my research when I was done. I wiped out everything so it wouldn't get back to me. The dosage wasn't even that big."

Bruce blinked, bewildered. "Are you saying it worked?"

Jackson shrugged plainly. "I mean, at least my migraines stopped."

"Wow." Bruce let out a huff. "All I got was unresolved anger issues."

Jackson gave him a small, sad smile, knowing where he was coming from. She had read all about it when the story broke. The amount of gamma radiation that had gone into his body should have killed him. "Yeah. Not to sound insensitive or anything of the sort, but I heard therapy could help with that if you ever think about going."

"I'll think about it. But that's not what I came to talk to you about."

"Oh." Jackson's eyebrows rose. "Then to what do I owe the honor?"

"Well, I'm going to be heading to India in a couple of days because they need my help and I was hoping you'd assist me while I'm there. I have heard nothing but great things about you and I really do believe that you can strive in all of it. Really put that Master's to work."

Jackson couldn't help but be flattered by the sound of that. She truly was touched because as competitive as Harvard was, she couldn't help but feel like all of her hard work was going unnoticed. Compared to all of the professors on campus, she was on the younger side of the spectrum with half the work that the professors with P.h.Ds had. The one thing she could possibly be proud of would have a nationwide manhunt conducted for her and have her brought in and questioned by some sort of higher authority. So it was nice to see someone—Bruce Banner, of all people—to appreciate it.

"Yes. Yes, I'll go."

Over the course of the year Jackson spent in India, she felt that she learned a lot. She learned that Bruce was really good at his job (the man had seven PhDs, for crying out loud), she also learned that she was the best at being the bearer of bad news. She knew it was best broken with the most comforting hold of the hand and being soft, yet firm, in the delivery, remembering how she had been given bad news and how he had done the polar opposite.

Bruce set up work in the slums of Kolkata, taking shelter in a small shack almost nearing the edge of the city. The first couple of days that Jackson was there, she mostly watched what was going on, taking everything in and jotting down notes before being put to work. She memorized what Bruce had been doing, repeating what he's done so he could work on another patient. There were very few instances where Jackson had to break it to the family that their relative was no longer with them, but they were already on the brink of death and they've done everything they could to save them.

The sleeping arrangements were. . .unusual, but they were unusual for the reason being that the citizens of India were only expecting one doctor. Not a doctor and a Chemistry professor.

"Guess I'll sleep on the floor, then," Bruce concluded as he folded up his jacket and rested it against a chair.

Jackson shook her head. "That won't be necessary. The bed's big enough for the both of us. As long as you  don't kick in your sleep and stay on your side of the bed, I think we'll be fine. It's like you won't even know I'm there."

There had been one night around the six-month mark of their being in Kolkata that definitely was the strangest for the both of them. They had stayed on their own side of the bed as promised, staring at the ceiling. The lights were still on, the silence was a little thick, and they didn't know what to say. Then Jackson spoke up.

"We should play twenty questions."

"What?"

Jackson turned to face Bruce, her head propped up on her hand. "Twenty questions. We haven't made much time to get to know each other because we've been working so much."

"I-I think we know each other," Bruce motioned between the two of them and the bed, "well enough."

"This," now it was Jackson's turn to motion between the two of them, "is purely platonic because I don't want a critically acclaimed doctor sleeping on the floor. Come on, ask me something. But it can only be a yes or no question."

Bruce nodded, sitting up. "All right. But only because you called me 'critically acclaimed'. Um, did you really graduate from Yale with a Master's? At twenty?"

"Why? You find that hard to believe?"

"You can't answer like that," Bruce reminded her, "only 'yes' or 'no' answers."

Jackson nodded. "It wasn't even an answer. But yes. Do you really have seven P.h.Ds? Who even needs that many?"

"Do you really need a Master's?" Bruce retorted and Jackson rolled her eyes at that. "Touché," she said, "but that Master's got me a job at Harvard."

"As a teaching assistant."

Jackson scoffed. "Okay. Very funny. But then I went on to become a professor."

"You walked yourself into that one, birdie."

There was a small smile spreading across Jackson's mouth when the nickname reached her ears. Not wanting to hear the explanation, she mumbled, blushing, "Answer the question, smart guy."

"Yes, I really do have seven P.h.Ds."

Jackson shook her head. "Why that many? I mean, one is enough to have, but seven? You must be in some serious debt."

"What about you, Yale alumna?" Bruce retorted in a playful manner, "Last time I checked, Ivy Leagues cost a pretty penny."

"Full ride, sweetheart." Jackson nodded. "Alright. Next question."

It had gone on like that for the next couple of rounds, basic questions that revolved around background information. Then it had come back to Bruce and he had sat there, pondering for a minute before speaking, his tone hushed. "Have you ever been in love?"

Jackson was silent for a while, any longer and it would've looked liked she didn't hear the question. Eventually, she spoke up. "Yes. Or at least, I thought I was."

Bruce waited quietly for Jackson to elaborate, if she was going to. And she did. "His name doesn't matter but he had graduated from Harvard Law and was already working at a really well-known law firm," she said, "the first six months were great. Felt like a fairytale, almost." The memories had started to come to the front of her mind as she went on.

"Then one day, he just started to distance himself. Leaving earlier, working later. I had asked him one night why he was being so distant and," tears were forming in her eyes at this point as she vividly remembered that night's events, her sharp-as-a-knife memory relaying everything that happened in very fine detail, "he said he had been avoiding me, trying to come up with a way to break up with me. It was our anniversary."

Now she was crying, not because of the event itself, but because of the emotions that had been attached to them. She was feeling them all over again and she let herself and she wasn't going to apologize for crying.

When she finally calmed down, she took in a breath and lay on her pillow, her face to the wall. She then turned to face Bruce, who had looked brokenhearted for her. He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and she let herself lean into the touch. Scooting closer, Jackson made her way into Bruce's warm embrace, feeling her upper arm being squeezed and a reassuring thumb being rubbed over her tiny heart tattoo. And she slowly fell asleep to the sweetest lullaby she's ever known.

Several nights later after that one, the two of them were working with a patient when a little girl came up the stairs, rapidly speaking Hindi, and out of breath from running. Jackson could tell by her tone that she was worried and she did her best to calm her down before getting Bruce's attention.

"There's a little girl over here that's worried about her father," she said. Bruce came over to the little girl, crouched down, pointed over to the sick people, and asked, "Is he like them?"

The little girl held out all the rupees she had and nodded. "Please."

Bruce nodded and stood. "Do you want me to come with you?" Jackson questioned, her eyes searching his. "I could keep her company if you'd like."

"That'd be nice."

They followed the little girl through the slums, reaching a shack at the edge of the city. They continued to follow her until she hopped up onto the bed and jumped out the window.

"I don't think I've ever felt so betrayed," Jackson mumbled, staring at the window in befuddlement. Then, there was a voice that belonged to neither her nor Bruce. "For someone who's been avoiding stress, you sure picked one hell of a place to settle."

Bruce turned around first, then Jackson followed suit. There, a woman with fiery, red, curled hair stood in a black dress and a sheer scarf draped over her lower arms. She had a hint of a smirk touching her lips and her stance said that she meant business.

"Well, I wouldn't say that I was avoiding stress. Avoiding it isn't the secret." Bruce crossed the room over to the mysterious woman, Jackson stayed put and watched the two interact because she felt that she wasn't exactly supposed to be there.

"Then what is it?" The woman quirked a cocky brow at him. "Yoga?"

Jackson took notice of Bruce wringing his hands, a sign that said he was getting nervous. "You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart," he said instead, wandering over to the window and looking out of it, letting the playfulness die. "I assume the whole place is surrounded."

Slowly backing out of the room, Jackson went to go find a window. Carefully, she pulled back the ratty curtain and took a peek outside at the surrounding darkness. Her eyes did a quick scan of the topography but nothing was to be found. Walking back, she leaned against one of the support beams and continued to eavesdrop. There was a possibility that the woman had seen her but decided to ignore her as she found Bruce to be more important.

"Doctor, we are facing a potential global catastrophe," said the woman, pulling out what could've possibly been a burner phone. It was a fairly slim, black flip phone that she opened clicked through its files. Jackson craned her neck but it was no use; she was too far to see anything.

Bruce let out a huff of a laugh. "Those I try to actively avoid." He then walked over to the table and the woman slid her phone over to him. "This," she started, "is the Tesseract. It's got the potential energy to wipe out the planet."

Jackson felt her skin prickle with goosebumps and anxiety when she heard that part. The potential energy to wipe out the planet. What even was the Tesseract? Geometrically speaking, it was a cube inside of a bigger cube with an even ratio all around; the cube was to the cube as the cube was to the square. But what could have been inside the cube that would have that much power? She stood up straighter and paid more attention to the conversation.

The woman continued. "It's been taken and he wants you to find it. It has a gamma signature too weak for us to trace. You're the best we got. If there was anyone else, I'd be there."

"So Fury's not after the monster?" Bruce concluded. Jackson recognized that surname. Fury. The two of them were talking about S.H.I.E.L.D, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. In researching the Super Soldier serum (there hadn't been much, so her replication was just a strong matter of trial and error), she had gone down a rabbit hole and learned a lot about Steve Rogers—who had been the prime candidate—along with the organization.

"That's not what he told me," said the woman; Jackson had yet to catch her name. "Fury trusts you. He needs you on this."

"He gonna put me in a cage?" Bruce lowered his head, his tone sardonic. The woman leaned forward for her phone as she spoke. "Fury's not gonna put you in a— "

Bruce's hands came down onto the table, resulting in a hard smack. "Quit lying to me!" As soon as he said that, the woman pulled a gun out from under the table and then came the sound of it cocking. Jackson let out a gasp and smacked her hand over mouth in shock as she watched the scene unfold before her eyes. She saw the woman make brief eye contact with her before shifting her gaze back to Bruce.

"I'm sorry. That was mean," Bruce said, a little mockingly for someone who had a gun in his face. A loaded one, nonetheless. "Why don't we do this the easy way around where you don't shoot that and the other guy doesn't. . ." he motioned around the room, ". . .make a mess. Okay? Natasha?"

So Natasha was her name. Natasha lowered her gun hesitantly and spoke into her earpiece. "Stand down. We're good." And they were surrounded, as well. "'You and me', huh?" Bruce clicked his tongue, feeling quite deceived. Natasha's stance was unwavering, keeping her cool and giving nothing away. "Who's the stowaway?" she changed the subject, nudging her chin over at Jackson.

Bruce turned to her and motioned her over. "Natasha, this is Jackson Edwards," he introduced, "she's been helping me the past year I've been here."

"Ah." Natasha nodded sagely. "Is she the stress reliever?" Her emphasis on "she" wasn't accusatory, but rather suggestive.

    Jackson made a face. "I wouldn't call it that," she spoke with a shake of her head, "I've been assisting him with the sick patients."

"And I will let you continue on with the good work. However, Dr. Banner and I need to go." Natasha began making her way towards the exit but Jackson stopped her. "I'm coming with you guys. I mean, I heard the whole thing. I might as well see what's up."

Bruce pulled her aside and squeezed her upper arms, a thing he did when he got concerned. "I can't let you do this. I can't let you go. What if it's too dangerous?"

Jackson searched his eyes and she found nothing but worry. "I'm sure all that's gonna happen is that we're gonna do some research to try and locate the Tesseract and bring it back to S.H.I.E.L.D safely. What's the worse that could happen?"