Anthony Edward Stark

Was there even a point to telling 'Tony, don't touch it'? Bruce sighed as Tony did exactly that, picking up the artifact that their enemy had been taunting them while Bruce stood there in stretchy pants that show uncomfortably too much for him, but at least he wasn't nude every time he changed now. He was also pretty sure it was all Tony's idea that they were purple.

Whoever their enemy was, it had something to do with Thor, or at least Asgard, and Bruce had no idea what this artifact was. Really, they needed to get a hold of Thor and make sure this was returned to the realm it came from since SHIELD no longer existed to immediately haul it away. It looked like some sort of odd trinket. The madmen had been raving about it being able to grant wishes, but frankly if that were true, they wouldn't be here right now, or they'd be insects, or something else. Instead, they won, he lost, and surprisingly no worse for wear on their part.

He ignored Tony's joking around, making random and stupid wishes on their way back to 'home', still under repair even after all this time though nearing completion. What he didn't know was that Tony still was fussing with it after he went to sleep on the plane, exhausted from changing, and he made one real wish when Banner couldn't hear it. One that came from the heart.

One no one else would know anything about except Bruce, who slept through Tony's quiet wish.

Nothing seemed to change at first. They landed, they arrived back at the Tower. Clint looked up, nodded in approval that they were okay, and went back to trading shit with someone on Call of Duty. He was heavily involved in the clean up of SHIELD's mess and it showed - he still had a heavy bandage on his left arm from a lucky move from a HYDRA agent, hence why he hadn't joined them.

It would come that night, just before Tony went off to sleep. It was the strangest message he would ever get in his life, because it wasn't an email, a text message, or anything of the life.

It was just a message on his screen in a box, white with black text. ASCII art, but the shape would be achingly familiar. It was that of a gryphon.

He couldn't sleep in, no matter how late he was up the night before. His brain was just hard wired for thought and thought required being awake and moving. And so, just after eight in the morning, Bruce's room was invaded by an angry man with an unkempt beard and bags under his eyes and hair all a mess.

"Not funny, Banner," Tony said angrily, letting Bruce blink or try to control a change or whatever he had to do from the stampeding and equally quick to leave Tony Stark who ended up slamming his door twice in the process.

He returned to his room in a huff and scowled at the little gryphon before he told JARVIS to clear the image.

He had been doing better.

So much better.

Why this? Why now?

Poor Bruce nearly ended up with a problem and Tony with a huge new repair bill, only by pure good luck did Bruce manage to keep it together (and some verbal help from JARVIS, too). He had no idea what was even going on, just a flash of some jumbled text on the screen and a very angry Tony.

JARVIS, of course, did as asked. The little ASCII art 'drawing' vanished from his screen.

But it would only take the morning news to indicate something else strange was going on. If Tony didn't know by the time he went about his way, he'd be hearing about it from Clint. It seemed that every major internet carrier in and around New York was getting complaints about slow speeds but more so, that there may be a new virus going around due to thousands of people getting a strange looking bird appearing on their screen.