AN It was a challenge to write for a character I hadn't before, but I figured WHY NOT? and wrote in a style I've never done for a genre I've never done with a type of setting I've never done SO GO BIG OR GO HOME, AM I RIGHT? but no seriously i threw my entire soul into this and i don't know what happened i can hear the ruffalo's voice in my head and i can see the renner kill-everyone-on-the-train-with-a-pick-ax resting face and everything hurts will i ever go back to how i was.
ALSO WHY UPDATE YOUR MULTICHAP STORIES WHEN YOU CAN WRITE LONG AND SELF-INDULGENT ONESHOTS, AM I RIGHT?
Bruce groaned and shifted, trying to open his eyes. Then he realized that his eyes were open, it was just that he had his face in the ground. He rolled over, trying to sort through the static that was his memories.
The sky was just as dark as the ground, without even the benefit of stars to break up the horrible nothingness.
He said it would rain later, he thought, then paused. A face swum into mind, but not a name (words were always slow to come back after he became the…well, after he changed). It was nearly desperate and definitely scrunched in pain.
Bruce ran a hand through his hair, then paused when some of it clung to his fingers. Stomach sinking through the ground, Bruce slowly lowered his hand to his face. He couldn't see his hand before his face, and everything around him smelled like dirt and mildew, but he knew what was on his hand, from both intuition and experience.
He still had to know, had to be sure. Tentatively, he tasted whatever was on his hand. Bruce spat out violently, nearly retching when he tasted blood.
He didn't have to check himself for wounds to know that the blood wasn't his.
Of everything on that damn train, Bruce was convinced that the whistling would tip him over the edge. He cleared his throat then realized that he probably couldn't be heard over the noise.
"Agent Barton, could you possibly…stop whistling?" he asked, leaning over so his neighbor could hear him. He wasn't dealing with his agitation half so well as Bruce, as his leg was jack hammering against the seat. He paused whistling "Moon River" long enough to grunt out an answer, though, which Bruce supposed was something.
"Can't," he grunted. "If I do, I swear I'm going to hit that kid in the solar plexus. And here, Bruce, it's Clint."
Bruce nodded, mentally reprimanding himself for the slip. But then, with all of the screaming that was going on, he couldn't really blame himself for losing concentration.
A few seats down from him, a five year old was throwing a tantrum that shook the entire train car. He was screaming and crying with a strength that was honestly kind of frightening, while his older sister casually continued playing on her handheld. His mother, however, was shooting apologetic looks to everyone who dared meet her eye and hissing in his ear to be sit down and be quiet this second. Everyone in the car was studiously trying to pretend that nothing was going on, while passively making it very clear they were about ready to mob the child and stuff him into a luggage container if he didn't stop. People got up, loudly commenting on how they had to go to the bathroom, nasty looks were shot, head phones were put in, and conversations were increased in volume, as if by doing something else, the kid would stop screaming.
Bruce paused, noticing the way Clint had stuffed his hands in his pockets. He hadn't exactly expected such a stoic, well trained SHIELD agent to give an exceptionally normal response. Though thankfully he was master of himself enough to refrain from using his expertise on the raging five year old down the car from them.
For a second, he thought about pressing the matter, but then decided against it. Clint Barton may not have been the one that was susceptible to transforming into a giant monster, but Bruce didn't really want to test a man who looked like he was on the verge of casually killing everyone in the train car. With a pick ax, probably.
"Well, Clint, I wouldn't complain if you did."
Clint gave a short chuckle, and for a moment Bruce thought maybe he might have a reprieve from at least some of the noise. Then Clint resumed whistling ("Jailhouse Rock", this time), which only further compounded Bruce's anxiety and irritation.
Bruce bit his cheek and leaned back, folding his hands in his lap. Down the car, the mother of the human tantrum looked flustered, hissing at her child to stop or so help her she would take both of them outside. The child's response was to shoot the woman a look and say that she couldn't take him outside, they were in a train.
One tight lipped smile and door slam later, the mother proved that she could indeed take him outside.
An audible sigh swept through the train car as soon as they were gone, and casual conversation resumed.
"God bless corporal punishment," Clint sighed, pulling out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. He twirled them in his fingers and gave Bruce a smile.
"Relax, Doc. This is gonna be a milk run, no worries. Look, I promise you we'll be back before it even rains tonight."
Bruce gave him a look, but didn't bother arguing.
"Oooooooooooh Clint I did not volunteer for this!"
Bruce's shout abruptly was cut off as the cord snapped taught, jerking the words (and possibly his tongue) from his mouth. Above him, Clint had his teeth clenched in an arrow shaft, which was probably a good thing. Bruce had the suspicion that had his mouth been free, he probably would have been snarling out all sorts of imaginative curses.
Clint had an arrow in his mouth, bow jammed between him and the wall, the cord connected to Bruce's harness striping his hands scarlet and white, and just about every available bit of self bracing himself in an air vent. Behind him, a posse of AIM agents (agents? Employees? Cult members? Bruce had no idea where these paid fanatics fit in) were scrambling towards them, waving some unfriendly looking machinery. The air vent was large enough for them to run ducked over, but they were still slower than Bruce and Clint had been, as they were carting around ostentatious amounts of weaponry.
In a swift movement, Clint had the cord wrapped around one forearm, yanked the arrow from his teeth, activated the tip, and flicked at the floor of the vent a few feet behind him. The moment the tip hit the metal, a thick foam shot out of it, presumably sealing off the vent. Bits of foam leaked out the vent and fell onto Bruce, making his stress levels bounce a little bit higher.
"You know, Doctor," Clint grit out, pulling Bruce up a few feet, "people never actually volunteer for this type of crap on missions. It just happens."
"Says the man who's not dangling a few stories above the ground by a thin cord," Bruce grumbled, feeling his hands start to shake. He clenched his teeth and tried to press the raw, unadulterated fear from his body. Losing it now would not be a good thing, especially for Clint.
"Hey, can you please hurry becausemyfingersaregoingtocomeoff."
Bruce clenched his teeth and pulled the face plate off the control panel, staring down a jungle of wires and switches.
"The red and yellow wire, yeah?"
"Yes."
Never again. You are never again going to go along with any suggestions for milk runs, Bruce, because it will always end messy and you can't let yourself be duped like this every time.
The car hummed down the road, headed farther and farther away from any distinguished trace of humanity Bruce could imagine. In the last ten minutes alone he had seen more goats than buildings, and once, even a camel farm. A surprised sound had stumbled from his lips before he could even think (could camels even survive in Maine?), earning a hard look from his driving companion.
Bruce's brain stalled for a moment as he glanced back out the window, where the camel farm had conveniently vanished. He cleared his throat, deciding that if he was going to break the nearly forbidding silence, then it better be for a damn good reason (which was not camels).
"So, uhm, Clint, why exactly were you assigned to me?"
"Who says I was assigned to you and not the mission?" Clint didn't sound half so menacing as he looked, which Bruce supposed was a good, if unexpected, sign. He still gave him a look, which made Clint shrug and try to hide a smile.
"Alright, yeah, I guess they were a bit more picky about who was your partner when they realized they'd be needing your expertise."
"Why they couldn't have my expertise from somewhere nice and safe like an office, I don't know," Bruce muttered, glancing at the hills around them as the car settled on a dirt road. "Are you sure we're going the right way? I don't think a big bad chemical plant is going to be at the end of a dirt road."
He could hear Clint sigh through his nose, as if asking himself why he had been saddled with the amateur. The glance he gave his navigation system was barely enough to register that there even was a navigation system, much less read what was on it.
"Yep, I'm pretty sure."
Bruce gave a sigh of his own, and leaned his elbow against the window.
"But is this really a good idea? I mean, there's a reason SHIELD's left me alone. Unless there's some cracker jack planning to detonate a gamma fueled bomb at the earth's core, I don't really see why I need to be, uhm, on site."
"Look, Doc, I get that you're nervous about SHIELD ops since Manhattan, but sometimes we can't just do stuff from a mile away. Trust me on this one."
Bruce opened his mouth, but then closed it when Clint raised his eyebrows at him as if to say 'Archer, remember?' He instead sighed, and settled back into his chair.
"Why you, though? What makes you the man for the job with the monster?"
"'I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men.' What's a Hulk compared to that?" Clint said, not taking his eyes off the dirt track. Bruce raised an eyebrow.
"Didn't expect you to be one to quote Conrad, Clint."
"Yeah, well, there's lots of down time on some missions."
"Heart of Darkness isn't exactly something you'd read to pass the time."
"Nope."
Bruce pursed his lips, making it clear that he was not going to let this go. He was tired of SHIELD running circles with him, saying one thing and meaning another. Bruce just wanted a straight shooter, for once, and he had a feeling that Clint was about as close to one as he would get.
Clint glanced at him, then heaved a sigh.
"Nothing. There's nothing to qualify me for the job more than anyone else, except for the fact that no one wants to work with me." He gave Bruce a tight smile, then looked back at the road.
"Loki did quite a number on me, let me tell you. He climbed in my head, made me sabotage my own side, then left all sorts of doubts and fears for me to face from my allies when I woke up. Most SHIELD agents aren't convinced that I'm a good guy, they think Loki's pet might resurface at any second. So, they've been dishing out kiddie ops to me. I guess they figure that with this one, if I tried anything, you might smash me to bits, problem solved."
"…Comforting," Bruce said, because he wasn't sure if there was much else to say. Clint glanced at him and gave another granite smile.
"Ain't it, though?"
Bruce wiped his hands on the grass around him, smearing off the blood as best he could. He squinted around, trying to discern anything in the murk. He thought there might be a vague orange glow on the skyline to his left, which could have been some city in the middle of Canada or the factory that he had set on fire (well, Clint had been the one to light it. Bruce had just given him the idea).
He stood up, grimacing as his body let him know it was one giant hurt. Gritting his teeth, Bruce headed towards the lights. It was getting colder, and he could already taste the rain on the air. Whether he was in the middle of Quebec or still in Nowhere, Maine, Bruce knew he needed to get back to some sort of civilization. The mission had gone about as south as a mission could, while still being successful, and he needed to get into contact with SHIELD…however one did that. Clint had briefly made contact in the factory after they had been rumbled, but as far as Bruce knew, there hadn't been a proper response.
He paused, remembering Clint. Last Bruce had seen him, the man had been unconscious, shoulder and head bleeding a fair amount. Where had Bruce seen him last? He had been…not himself at the time, and everything tended to be a jumble when he shifted, senses and thoughts and people stabbing at his brain until he felt like he might explode.
It wasn't the act of shifting into a giant beast that caused Bruce to lose himself. Rather, it was like being in a militant kaleidoscope of senses that was periodically shot through with primal instincts, and, if he was lucky, coherent thought. The lack of room for human reasoning to deal with the onslaught was what made him unpredictable and rampage across cities.
That was the main nightmare, becoming little more than an animal and knowing that he was so much more.
"Are you sure this is right?"
"Yep. The guy said fifth floor, fourth hallway, second on the left. Trust me, I got this."
For about the thousandth time that day, Bruce shot Clint a look. The man that had issued them their passes had led them around the commercial floor of the factory had said no such thing.
Mostly he just streamed off facts about the process of more efficient commercial crops, and how they were being used for everything from feeding the poor starving children in Africa, to alternative fuel. The scientist part of Bruce was vaguely interested, even though he knew more than enough to tell that half the impressive machines placed around the room were not meant to hybridize corn.
Eventually, he lead them into a camera dead zone (or Clint was just tired of listening to him rattle on), and Clint casually patted him on the back. Before Bruce, or the tour guide, for that matter, could even identify what had happened, the man was on the ground, jolting slightly from the mini electricity pack Clint had stuck on his shoulder.
Bruce barely had time to gasp and stagger back before Clint had taken the man's key card and swiped open the door to what was revealed to be a janitor's closet. He was then secured via zip tie from Clint's pocket, gagged with his tie, and locked in the room in less than thirty seconds.
That was around the time that Bruce had decided that on the scale of terrifying people, Clint had just inched his way past the Black Widow.
Now they were headed towards some place that held some important computers that held some important something somewhere. Bruce had given up keeping track of the nitpicky details in favor of going through his part of the plan, figuring by this point that Clint knew where they needed to go and what they needed to do at what time (or, at least, the SHIELD techies speaking to him via earpiece did).
That didn't keep him from being nervous, though, and asking questions was the closest thing Bruce had to a safety blanket.
"Hey, here it is," Clint said, swiping the guide's card and opening a door. Bruce stepped inside, then hurried to the bank of computers.
"You got about ten minutes, Banner, then we've gotta get out of here."
"Alright, that should be long enough for me to look over these files." He pulled out a thumb drive handed to him by Agent Hill, which was supposed to hack the computer and give him access to the files he needed.
Bruce glanced over the files before him, then went back through them. He frowned, searching deeper through the files.
Apparently, AIM had quite a few irons still in the fire, even after Aldrich Killian died in the shake down with Tony over Christmas. And after the whole Extremis fiasco, SHIELD had learned caution when something cropped up on their radar. Especially when it had to do with cyborgs, gamma radiation, and living metal.
"Something wrong, Banner?"
"A whole lot of somethings. Somehow, I don't think we're in some factory that only raises special tomatoes."
"Why's that?" Clint edged closer, scanning the screens as well.
"They're absolutely insane, that's why."
Bruce sprinted across the storage room, praying that the AIM agents' accuracy wouldn't spontaneously improve and sink a laser into his back. Clint was firing a gun at them with hardly even a glance backwards, which only added to the chaos.
"What are they shooting at us?!" Bruce yelled over the noise, fervently wishing he was back on the train car, listening to a poorly behaved child scream at the top of his lungs.
"You really wanna let one hit you to find out?" Clint yelled back, switching to the gun in his other hand (Bruce hadn't realized that it was necessary for him to be a walking arsenal, but this was his third gun, not to mention his bow and arrows, which were currently out of commission due to a broken bow string). Bruce turned and shoved a scaffold that had nearly had its bottom legs incinerated by the lasers. It promptly collapsed with an explosion of breaking wood, scattered piping, and a mountain of dust, giving the two of them a few moments' respite. They dove behind a stack of crates, panting and raking the walls with their eyes for a potential escape route.
"Why-why not?" Bruce panted, grinning at Clint in a vague bout of hysteria. "Already d-did that once, and it made-made me a superhero."
"Touché. C-C'mon."
Clint pushed Bruce to his feet, and they scrambled towards a set of double doors. More AIM agents were pouring into the room, ants protecting their hill.
If ants had lasers that could burn through metal and cement with just one go, Bruce thought, barreling through the door after Clint. They ended up in a hallway, faced with two agents racing towards them, weapons raised. Without a moment's hesitation, Clint fired twice and they dropped to the ground, screaming and clutching at their legs.
He skidded to a halt in front of one, grabbing him by the front of his uniform.
"Tell me how to get out of here."
"Like hell," he gritted out. Clint pointed the gun at his other knee.
"You know, there are a shit ton of joints in your body. And while I don't have a shit ton of bullets, I have enough to make you wish I had sank the first one in that nice little brain of yours. You wanna be able to move anything but your eyes when I'm done, then you'll tell me how the hell we get out of here."
The man took a brief second to think things over, then blurted out the route to the exit.
"Thanks," Clint said, then slammed the butt of the gun into the man's head. He dropped the man, who was now unconscious, and nodded down the hall.
"C'mon, Doc, we gotta leave." Clint turned on his heel, scanning the hall for any more attackers. Bruce had just begun to step around the bodies when he noticed a soft flicker in the corner of his eye.
"Wait, what's that—dammit take cover!"
Bruce hurled himself toward Clint, already feeling the fabric of his shirt tearing apart before the grenade in the AIM agent's hand detonated.
"Doctor Banner, you're the only one that can help us." Agent Hill's expression could only be called 'no nonsense' as she stared him down from across the table.
"I don't really think that's true. You've got all sorts of resources, any other expert in gamma radiation should do the job."
"You're saying it's a good idea to put aside our best resource in favor of a subpar one?"
"I wouldn't go that far…"
"Please, Doctor Banner. We have evidence that Aldrich Killian wasn't the only person in charge of AIM, even though the people in charge of the company aspect of it are scrabbling right now. In fact, he seems to have been the only one keeping his partner in check, if our sources are correct."
"'If your sources are correct?'"
"Do you really want to leave that to chance?"
"No, but I'm no super agent. I'm…the guy you ask to watch over your house, or to look over your paper the night before it's due. I don't go in and survey information on site, much less steal it. Can't Agent Romanoff do that?"
"She's currently indisposed. But you won't be going in alone. You'll be paired with one of our best. Plus it is a low risk assignment. The factory is remote, and all they do is grow experimental crops. With Agent Barton, you'll be able to slip in and out before anyone knows you're there.
Bruce glanced at the papers before him, then sighed through his nose.
"Somehow, Agent Hill, that doesn't make me feel better."
"They're...making people," Bruce said, knowing that the diagrams and notes on the giant screen wouldn't make much sense to Clint. Clint frowned, understanding there was a bit more than that going on.
"Like, they're making people out of metal. This, here," Bruce said, gesturing to a small cluster of notes, "this shouldn't even be possible. They're taking gamma radiation and using it to help animate metal, make it a living thing."
"So what's with the people?" Clint asked, pointing at a few head shots of people on the other side of the screen.
"They're test subjects, people who seemingly need some sort of enhancement to their bones, like rods inserted, or prosthesis attached."
"So for now it's just being used for normal enhancements, nothing like coating the actual bone?"
Bruce gave Clint a look.
"I'm not sure anyone would be able to survive that. Not only would that be incredibly invasive to the host, doubtlessly causing them to go into shock, but also exceptionally painful. The metal would have to be melted for the application, and anything strong enough for the purpose would have a very high melting point. The sort of damage would leave most people as a puddle."
Clint gave a dark chuckle and ran a hand through his hair.
"Boy, do I have stories to tell you."
"Back to the matter at hand," Bruce said, gesturing wildly to the notes and pictures cycling through the screen. "This is…beyond anything I thought possible. From what I saw, the process is supposed to be slow, organic. The metal doesn't coat the body, it becomes the body. And once it's all in place, you're left with this sort of cyborg warrior. It doesn't need to eat, drink, or rest half so often as normal people, and can withstand some of the most extreme environments on earth. Imagine a soldier with all of that, sold to the highest bidder."
"Sounds great. What's the catch?"
"It's unstable. There's no way something like this could ever last, completely changing the nature of a substance, not to mention using something as capricious as gamma radiation to achieve it. I played around with that, and look at what happened."
"So what happens when the subjects go Chernobyl?"
"Just that," Bruce said with a dark laugh. "They melt. The metal is slowly spreading through their system, transforming everything into this living metal, and after a point they become a toxic puddle. Anything that then touches them suffers intense damage. Imagine a mercenary like that. Even if they're caught, as long as they're close enough to the target, some remote handler could press a button, and suddenly they're melting into poison."
"Holy damn," Clint muttered. He reached around Bruce and began tapping on some keys. A dialogue box appeared, saying that the files were being transferred to the thumb drive.
"SHIELD will want to see this for themselves."
They waited anxiously for the files to transfer, half expecting AIM staff to stroll in at any second. Bruce continued examining the files as they flitted past, while Clint settled his hand into his duffle bag, which held his collapsible bow.
The dialogue box announcing that the transfer was completely appeared, and just as Bruce reached over to tap Clint's arm, a new one replaced it.
"Uhm, Clint? You might want to…" Bruce trailed off as Clint turned around. He glanced over the box, scowl deepening.
The box was similar to that of a chat room, except there was no slot for response. It read 'M: SHOULD YOU BE HERE?' The cursor blinked at them a moment before a new message appeared.
M: I KNOW THAT LITTLE DEVICE SHOULDN'T BE THERE.
"Shit," Clint hissed, snatching the thumb drive from its port. Bruce waited, feeling like he might be sick.
M: IT DOESN'T MATTER. I LEARNED WHAT I NEEDED TO THE MOMENT YOU PLUGGED THE DRIVE IN. SHIELD HAS NEVER TRULY UNDERSTOOD THE ART OF SUBTLTY.
"Clint, we've gotta get out of here! They know who we are—"
"Hold on a sec, let's see if they give themselves away. I need to know who's speaking to us."
M: I'D RUN WHILE YOU CAN, INSTEAD OF ARGUING. YOU DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT.
An alarm screamed through the factory, making Bruce nearly jump out of his shoes. He clenched his teeth and held his breath, forcing down all of what he was feeling. He needed to stay calm, he needed to stay calm, he couldn't blow up, not now, not when Clint needed information.
"Who are you, how do you know what we're doing?" Clint asked, raising his voice so that he could be heard above the din.
There was a pause, and then the screen changed to a video feed. A bizarre looking person leered at them. They seemed to be strapped into a sort of suit that covered everything but their face, which was horribly wrinkled and far too large for its body, if the size of its arms was any indicator. A dark shock of hair peaked out from behind a mechanized headband, which hooked back into the suit. If Bruce had to guess, the suit was meant to keep the person upright, as their proportions were so horribly out of order.
"I suppose there's no harm in telling you, as you'll soon be smears down the factory's drain. I know because all machinery does my bidding. Your thumb drive gave up its secrets the moment you plugged it into my system. I am MODOK, Agents, and watching you advance through my factory has been most amusing. But I have tired of this game, leaving you without any purpose."
Bruce grimaced, unsure if he was more repulsed by the person's disfigured mouth moving or their high, grating voice. Clint didn't seem affected, scowling at the screen.
"You're telling me you let us wander through your factory?"
"Obviously. You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?"
"One can always hope," Clint said. In an eye blink Clint had pulled out a gun and emptied several shots through the keyboard into the computer beneath. The screen erupted with static, MODOK's cackle still echoing through the speakers. Clint was grabbed Bruce's shoulder and began shoving him through the door.
"C'mon, Doc, can't worry about our computer problem now."
Bruce began running, praying that the AIM security team was a lot less impressive than its alarm system.
Alarms were tearing through his skull he really hated that thing, why didn't he just destroy it already but he had to focus, not on the blood from the tongue bite before the change which was coppery and ugly and annoying, but he had to focus because the breathing coming from the hawk in his hands was muffled and difficult to hear from the laser buzz and the shouting and the sound of feet feet feet all over, making his head spin.
Do this do the fire smell was clogging up his throat and making his eyes hurt, which was stupid because walls were crumbling around his skin and people were flattening beneath his hands, making a snap this do unlike the dry snap of concrete but not the hawk the hawk wasn't allowed to snap this don't lose it that would be bad because he was already hurt.
That was why he needed to help the hawk you can do this it was because he was hurt so he had to keep going you've done it before.
But he didn't know where he was going and he wanted to go back home what just hit him where was that, why did the blue beams burn, things weren't supposed to burn not bullets not lightning not alien guns even though they had fired and fired and fired and fire sometimes burned but he wasn't around the fire because the fire smell was thinning and maybe that was the rain yes rain would cool the burning.
The fire smell was back and heavy now and then there was fire and the fire was hot and he shouldn't be there because the hawk wasn't like him the hawk burned and he didn't need more mess on his arm get outside already because the hawk had already gotten coppery red all over him and that wasn't good but neither was the blue being shot at him so he smashed the wall don't crush him but that was with his side because the hawk wasn't tough and was starting to move around in his arm and shouting and making more noise and he didn't need that.
"Stop talking Hulk got you" and he stopped talking but he was moving and grabbing and poking and that didn't hurt but it was annoying and annoying was annoying leave him alone but there were bigger problems like the booms and the shouts all around and then suddenly the hawk was holding something and he threw it okay get away now making a very big boom and then he was tumbling turning through walls and the hawk was yelling and then suddenly the fire smell was much less and it was cool and dark but that was not good because his seeing wasn't good either so he ran in a direction.
The hawk wasn't there please please where had he gone he needed to get somewhere because the hawk's red was all over him but not the hawk himself so where had he gone please don't you dare have stepped on him the blue was there too and he hated the burn of the blue but he needed the hawk so he turned back to find him.
There wasn't just fire smell and screaming it was groaning and breaking of the ground and people burning and a lot of things dead but where was the hawk he's not here so he had to get out so he turned around you need to get out and then the biggest boom of all and suddenly he was back in the dark and he hit the ground.
Bruce ran through the hall, wishing that he had spent a lot more time in the gym, rather than the lab throughout his life. It certainly would have made this section of the mission easier.
Clint was running ahead of him, bow and arrow at the ready. They had already run into a number of AIM agents, who were all shouting and carrying weapons. The first time, Clint hadn't even bothered drawing an arrow, choosing instead to engage them in a brief transaction of blunt force trauma via elbows, knees, and bow. In the process, though, one of the AIM agent's weapons fired, burning away a good part of Clint's bowstring.
"You alright, Doc?" he panted, and Bruce nodded, waving a hand.
"What—'bout your bow?" Clint simply shook his head in response, shoving it back into his bag as if to say he was fine without it.
"What-what now?"
"We need to-to wreck this place. MODOK's prob-probably using it to make that living metal, so let's—destroy the place."
"Fire?"
"Good. But he's-he's plugged into the system. What's to prevent-prevent him from setting off the sprink-sprinkler system?"
"Mess up his-his wires."
Clint gave Bruce and appreciative grin, and turned on his mike system.
"Hey, yeah, things turned kinda south. Not what we-we planned for. Gimme the plan to the-the nearest control panel."
Clint nodded, grunting out a thanks as he gestured down a hall for Bruce. They had only run a few feet before Clint gasped and yanked out the ear piece, hissing as he tossed it to the ground.
"MODOK hacked it," he grunted in explanation, not bothering to glance back at the discarded ear piece. Clint's stride didn't falter in the slightest as he led Bruce down hallway after hallway, hand triggering a specialty arrow or kicking down a door when the occasion demanded it. Bruce's contribution to the whole thing was mostly keeping up.
"How d'you—how d'you know—where to go?" Bruce panted after a point, earning a terse "Told me the way," as if a single iteration of a doubtlessly complicated path was sufficient for anyone to memorize under pressure. Bruce then remembered that he wasn't supposed to be worrying about the details and just keeping up.
That was until Clint blew off the grate to an air vent and hoisted himself inside.
"You sure this is the way?" Bruce demanded, stalling.
"I'm sure. How d'you feel about heights?"
"I hate them, in this-this context."
"How about in the-the not dying context?"
"…No."
"Good."
Bruce edged his way around the hybrid corn field, trying to keep his eyes on the burning remains of the factory and not the giant trench he had caused when he had been blasted out of the factory before he changed back into himself. There was only a fourth of the field in some sort of upright manner, but then, he supposed that AIM had bigger worries than a decimated field of experimental corn.
It was getting cold and he really wanted to back to his bed and never wake up again, but that was at least four states away, and he still had to deal with whatever he could here. He more or less remembered what had happened, the disorientation having faded after a few minutes of walking. He had lost Clint somewhere, probably from the explosion Clint had caused with his arrow. Bruce hated to think it, but he was fervently praying that he hadn't crushed Clint somewhere along the way. He wasn't quite sure where to start looking, though, especially when another explosion went off every few minutes as the fire spread through the remains of the factory.
Bruce squinted at the grass surrounding the factory, thankful that the fire allowed him to finally see something. He could see where he had landed the first time, dirt and grass shoved into a rough, circular groove, but he didn't see a body, nor copious amounts of blood.
He held his breath, thankful that Clint hadn't been smashed by him, but at the same time absolutely terrified because he had no idea where Clint was, or if was even alive.
Bruce ducked from another explosion from the factory, and he was just started to consider changing again just to get the hell out of there when he heard someone shouting.
"—I don't care about the risks—yes I understand that he's the Hulk right now, I told you that in the first place, but I'll be damned before we leave him high and dry for whatever organization that feels like taking pot shots at him with a tank! I do not leave my partners out to fry, especially when they save my life. If you can't come up with a helicopter, then get Fury on the damn phone so he can get me one!"
"Gee, Clint, I didn't realize that we just needed to almost die together to become partners."
Clint whirled around, gun aimed at Bruce's forehead. Bruce froze, raising his hands. Clint stared at him, shock battling utter relief on his face.
"How'd you—"
"Corn," was all Bruce said in answer, shaking his head. "You wanna put the gun down, partner?"
Clint raised an eyebrow, lowering the gun. In his other hand was a cell phone, which had a small, peeved voice chattering out of the speaker.
"What, don't look at me, you said it first." Clint broke into a smile, and ran a hand through his hair.
"True. What am I gonna tell Natasha?"
"That's all your job, I'm just a consulting physicist," Bruce said, shrugging as he walked a little closer. "So, uhm, you gonna tell them to use that chopper to pick us up? 'Cause it's kinda cold out here, and I don't have a shirt anymore."
"Yeah, sure," Clint said, still shaking his head as he raised the phone to his ear.
"You know, you told me this would be a milk run."
Clint grinned, waving a hand and saying "I can get that chopper here in under half an hour, making good on half of what I said. That's more than what you'll get just about every other time."
"Thanks," Bruce laughed, "That's very comforting."
"Ain't it, though?"