Banner's face exploded as his body began to expand. He let out a cry of anguish as the feelings spread, his clothes beginning to rip and his muscles aching with agony. He clenched his stomach and doubled over at the waist, his face no longer recognizable and now a dark green colour. The animal inside of him let out a loud howl as it took over. Banner could think but it was like being a back seat driver at the Indy 500; he could yell and scream but ultimately had no control over the pedals or steering wheel. Instead he was reduced to a little nagging voice inside his own head, while the Hulk did whatever it was he insisted on doing.
The rest of the team watched a bit dumb struck as the man (or no longer a man) grew to 10X his original size. Hawkeye's mouth opened and he dropped the sandwich he'd been trying to feed himself.
The Captain grew weary and watched the change with apprehension, hoping it would go a bit better than the last time. They couldn't afford another busted pipe, or worse a man (beast) hunt through the city. He glanced at Stark whom was grinning from ear to ear. The sight made America clench his fist. He hated that Stark seemed to get some form of sick pleasure from this. It had been his fault after all that they were no longer dealing with Banner and instead his alter ego.
"You just had to push, didn't you?" Captain shot to Stark, crossing his arms. "You always bug him, trying to get a reaction. Well I hope this was what you wanted, 'cuz you can deal with the cleanup."
Stark chuckled, "I didn't know it meant that much to him. I mean its just one lousy notebook after all." He felt a tinge of guilt but refused to let it show. If it did, he'd be forced to admit he had been wrong, and there was nothing worse than Rogers and his self-righteous attitude.
The Hulk meanwhile had decided to make the kitchen his new stomping ground (literally) and was busy emptying the fridge into his mouth. Hawkeye glanced over as the Hulk picked up the fridge, "Uh guys, are we gunna deal with that or—" his face was a mixture of amusement and nervousness.
The Captain sighed, drawing his attention away from chastising his partner and back to the situation at hand. They knew better than to try and reason with It, and instead had to take a wiser, more gentle approach.
Hawkeye had already gotten hastily to his feet. "Hey christmas tree!" He called, shooting a dull arrow at the beast's shoulder. "Wanna stop eating all my food!" He yelled as the Hulk roared and dropped the fridge.
Barton's eyes widened as the Hulk made a quick bound over; the man seemed so tiny in comparison. The Hulk made a large fist and wound back, preparing for a fight. In one large movement he slammed his fist down on the Archer, hoping to squash his opponent like a small bug. Hawkeye was fast though and dodged the fist with a tuck roll. The Hulk wasn't entirely braindead having remembered the move from the last time they fought (which had been just the week before) and used his other hand to catch Clint off his guard, knocking him on his back.
The Captain was ready to offer help and tossed his shield at the back of Hulk's large green head. A large ringing sound echoed through the room like a bell, as the shield made contact. Rogers had to jump up quick to catch his weapon on its descent to the ground. Meanwhile, the opportunity had risen for the Archer to sneak under a table for cover and begin bombarding the beast with arrows.
Stark grabbed some cable from a nearby cabinet (the group had begun to prepare for events like this one) and tossed it to the Archer who could use an arrow to subdue their opponent. The Captain was tossed the other end and began to wrap it around the beast's body as Stark distracted him. In a matter of minutes the Hulk was forced to his knees, yelling and trying to rip himself free from the iron cable. The three men stood panting from the exertion, watching with a mixture of pity and admiration for their large angry friend.
"Well, all in a days work," Stark chided, crossing his arms and smiling to his comrades.
"Did he actually eat all the left over birthday cake? Are you fucking serious? I was saving that for my desert!" Hawkeye pouted, looking through the wreckage.
Rogers ignored them both, wondering what they would do with the Hulk while they waited for the Scientist to emerge again. He sighed, looking at the green beast and pouting his bottom lip, as was his habit when he was thinking.
"You know, he looks like a little kid when he's like this. Almost sorta cute," Hawkeye chuckled, his anger having quickly dissipated with the memory of his cake. He instead stood bending over the Hulk to get a closer look at the beast's sad face. The green giant snapped his teeth at the Archer's hand as he tried to pat his head condescendingly.
Stark rolled his eyes, having grown bored of the scene now that the excitement was over. He wandered towards the door to do some work.
"Ohhhh no, don't you dare!" The Captain called after him. "This is your mess. There's no way you're leaving me to clean all this up." He gestured to the nearly destroyed furniture and fridge. Granted it wasn't as bad as it usually was but that was only because Rogers had been prepared, placing the cable and things in a "hulk safety kit" (something Stark had mocked him about, always apparently "overthinking" and "planning").
"What? It looks all taken care of to me." Stark smirked. "Besides, unlike you both some of us have real work to do besides playing with a large green bug." He left the room to a chorus of complaints from America.
" Oh look, I think It likes this." Hawkeye called to the Captain, dangling a coloured pen in front of the Hulk like he was a cat. The Hulk let out a yell as it tried to free his hands to grab at the pen.
"Will you be nice?" Hawkeyes asked the beast in a baby voice. "No more smash. You need to be nice and have gentle hands." He continued to coo.
The Captain rolled his eyes and shook his head. Was he the only one taking any of this seriously. He knew Banner would be upset after all this, and wasn't looking forward to picking up the pieces. This was so typical of Stark; to cause a large mess and then dump the responsibility on someone else when the job became dull and the excitement was gone.
Barton continued to play with the beast, acting unusually kind and affectionate towards the green guy. "I think we should get him a colouring book! I think he'd like that." He blurted to Rogers without even thinking.
Rogers gave him a weird look at the outburst, nodding slowly, "Uh-huh. Suuurrrreee." He said with a chuckle.
"Well I just mean…" Barton backtracked, trying to recover. "I just think the green guy might like it. Might calm him down a bit" he said, his voice getting instinctively deeper.
Rogers raised a brow, "whatever you want," he said shrugging to the Archer.
"I'll go find him one." Barton gave a curt nod and slung his bow over his shoulder and leaving the room. The Hulk let out a groan, still not having received the pen.
The Captain sighed and walked over to his green friend, getting down on his haunches in front of him. The Hulk's head was to the side as he couldn't move his limbs to get himself up. His large brown eyes starred back at Rogers, sad and helpless. Barton was right, there was definitely a certain charm about him, though he wouldn't go as far to call him "cute."
" Are you in there Banner?" He asked the green guy in a quiet voice, searching for the Scientist in the beast's eyes. The team had been trying to figure out what to do with the Hulk. It was hard when there was no control and they had spent a lot of time recently talking in hushed whispers, wondering what to do if (when) this occurred at a more untimely place. Of course they knew Banner had no control over it, though that just presented more of a problem.
Rogers sighed, not knowing what he had been expecting. " 'course you're in there." He said sadly, adding a quick "I'm sorry" to excuse Stark's earlier behaviour which had sparked this whole thing.
Getting to his feet at the sound of Hawkeye's return, he made a face. He didn't know why the scene made him so upset but it did. Maybe it had something to do with seeing a member of his team tied up in the middle of a destroyed kitchen, the butt of some cruel joke.
"Okay so I didn't know if he'd like this one.. and then I was thinking that giving him one about dragons might not be such a good idea… Then again he shouldn't be colouring in a bunch of stupid My Little Ponies." The Archer mused, rooting through the stack of colouring books he had found with a package of crayons.
Rogers looked up, snapping out of his melancholy thoughts. "I don't even want to know why you have a bunch of princess colouring books in your room." he chuckled, taking a Cinderella one off Barton's hands.
Hawkeye didn't answer and instead just shrugged, kneeling in front of the green guy. "Okay SO we've got Star Wars, stupid lame ponies, a bunch of Disney ones.." He snatched the Cinderella one back out of Roger's hands so he could show some of the pictures.
Rogers shook his head, "guess I'll leave you both to it." He started for the door. Hulk groaned as though begging him to return and save him from the impending torture.
"Alright now you've gotta promise not to break these." Hawkeye coached, pulling a crayon from the package.