Bruce Banner, PhD, was never used to feeling on the same platform as everyone else.
Before, he was above everyone else. He was a brilliant scientist, working on the cure to America's every war, headed by the government itself. He was absolutely proud of himself, proud enough that he experimented on himself with a strand of gamma rays and paid the ultimate price.
After, he was far, far below most. Disgraced and on the run, an angry voice boiling behind his eyes. He was very far from proud of himself, and a day didn't go by that he didn't regret experimenting on himself. And the government that had once welcomed him with all sorts of resources and equipment now actively hunted for his blood.
But he hadn't ever sat on the floor of normalcy, the one he had once hated and now sought.
And then he is in Calcutta, and a girl is crawling up the stairs of a stranger's house with a bunch of bills gripped in her hand. He gave it back to her and ran off to the opposite side of town, past people who barely blinked at him.
But they did blink, and that put him on the defensive. The girl must have relatives, or the people were slightly nervous about an adult walking to the home of a child. Either way, he shoves it to his subconscious and tries to put back on his persona, an American doctor who wants to help out and wasn't planning on heading back home.
The door is pushed open and he's inside just in time to see the girl crawl out the window and disappear into the darkness.
Ah.
There's something that sparks to life inside of his head, a part of his brain but not him. The other guy growls and spits and bangs a single fist on the side of his head, but he hides any signs of discomfort and slowly turns around, hunching his shoulders.
And there is a woman, one with fiery red hair and piercing eyes and pale skin. Not from around here, and if he was guessing from the sheath she was oh-so-carefully hiding by her side, she was either government or someone who wanted him to fight.
To be honest, he's a little insulted. He has been on the run for quite some time and this woman thought she could hide a gun in the curve of a skin suit and had used a little girl who was now in the fighting range if he were to hulk out?
The other guy would destroy this entire city, and that little girl had no chance of running far enough away if he hulked out now. That was the only reason he would listen to this woman, this person who had done no research on him.
That's also insulting. A gun? He guessed many more of her were waiting outside, but they sent her in with a single gun and didn't even give her a full set of body armor. Her face is completely uncovered.
She starts to talk, and he pays close attention to everything she's doing despite slowly looking around the room, curling and tucking his hands into his chest. It gives him a naturally nervous look while hiding any sign of his fingers turning green, hiding any sign of being angry. It has worked for every person that hunted him down, up until the moment he finally let the other guy out and has to run again.
His eyes flick up to meet hers, finished with his scan. There is movement from outside the house.
"You know, for a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you sure picked a hell of a place to settle."
He'll throw her a hint, some sort of tidbit to see if she is any different. "Avoiding the stress isn't the secret."
She doesn't blink. "Then what is it? Yoga?"
He chuckles softly, straining his ears. The other guy howls once at the soft hum of a recording device somewhere on her. A phone, if he has to guess. Didn't they all understand that he could hear things no regular human could?
They never did, and they would never catch on.
Bruce looks around, thinking. "You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart," he admits. "I guess the whole place is surrounded."
"Just you and me."
"And who, exactly, are you? I'm going to guess you know who I am."
"My name is Natasha Romanoff."
He hasn't heard of her, but that doesn't mean much. It sounds real, had the Russian undertones that her accent does. "Are you here to ill me, Miss Romanoff? Because that's not going to work out for anyone."
He keeps his eyes up and facing forward, but there is a twitch towards her gun. "No, of course not. I'm here on the behalf of SHIELD."
His eyebrows raise. Okay, he didn't see that coming. They'd been keeping a passive eye on him and though he'd thrown it off a few times to take a vacation, he hadn't thought they would ever contact him. "SHIELD, huh. How did you find me?"
"We've never lost you, Mr. Banner. We kept our distance and ever chased a few off of your trial."
So that was what that had been. "Why?"
"Nick Fury trusts you. And now he needs you."
Bruce barely bit back a sigh. This is even worse than all of the times they wanted to kill him because they just tried to shoot him with all a manner of guns and weapons that didn't touch him before the other guy came out. The people who wanted him to fight tried to cajole, threaten, and even capture him.
He always broke free. "What if I say no?"
"I'll persuade you."
So she's a spy. A manipulator and a liar, if the way she reacted had any meaning. And this was the person SHIELD sends to drag him?
He is almost interested in seeing how SHIELD is so smart to keep tabs on him and yet sends in this woman. "And what if the… other guy says no?"
Not Hulk. That's a name far too wrong for him to use.
Natasha mutters something about a streak and breaking it, and he's started to quietly walk around the room. He's soft and doesn't touch anything, wringing his hands by his chest. The tips of his index fingers are fading darker. The other guy senses that it is almost his time to come out and play, and there are growls and snorts echoing alongside his own thoughts.
"Doctor, we're facing a global catastrophe."
"Well, those I actively try and avoid."
Natasha draws out a tablet of some sort and flicked open a screen, turning it to hand it to him. He peers at it, eyebrows raising. Some sort of glowing blue cube with numbers telling weight, height, and power levels next to it.
"This is the Tesseract. It has the potential power to wipe out the planet."
"I don't think you want me on the street because of something's potential."
Her next line raises his eyebrows. "Fury wants you to track its radiation so we can find it before its used. Just you, in a lab, without any issues."
And he really stops moving to think. His cover is blown in this small town, too many agents toting guns and heading toward where he is.
So he turns to her and raises an eyebrow, thinking as fast as he can. He doesn't trust this woman, this Natasha Romanoff with her gun and her agents and her sweet words of nothing. But SHIELD is a name he recognizes and he will go with her because they have resources and it won't take him very much to grab a couple hundred dollars and run off to the farthest continent.
And he doesn't even think of testing her, of slamming his fist on the table without a hint of his other guy. She will draw her gun on him and every agent outside will react, and all she'll do is look at him more sharply, look at him like he's got an actual brain inside his head instead of a monster.
He doesn't want that. The more people that treat him like he's smart as well as destructive will only make it harder for him to break free.
So instead he meekly nods his head, and there is a distinct clattering of a helicopter not far in the distance. Natasha smiles at him and he almost smiles back, almost gives one with far too many teeth and not enough warmth.
SHIELD, the FBI, Ross, they've all come for him. Every time in the past there have been threats and tranquilizers and weapons, and he's beaten them every time. There's a reason he hides in these small, broken towns, and it's not so he can hide better.
He's a genius. If he wanted to, he could hide in the middle of New York City and not let anyone notice.
But here, no one talks about his strength, or his hearing, or his mind. They need him and so there are no questions because doctors' are a resource they have limited access to. In New York, people could fire him for being suspicious. These people need him and he's good at what he does, so it never takes him long to sink into another town.
People see him as the Hulk, a monster capable of crushing all those in his path. But long before Ross strung him up with plans to cut him open and see how long it took for him to bleed up, he was a genius and he is one now.
They never expect him to be smart as well as strong. Brains over brawn, but he's got both with plenty to spare.
The trip is fast and he spends the entire time tucked in a corner, playing up his fear of the helicopter. They're even bigger idiots than he thought, but that's also the other guy talking. They are smart but don't know enough about him. A metal tube filled with a secret spy and more guns along the wall than he could count. If it was meant to be a threatening sign of strength, he's not that impressed.
But then they are touching down on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and he's pushed out of the helicopter and left there. A man walks up, powerful and strong and puny, the other guy whispers. It's becoming his favorite word after Bruce's last kidnapping.
They talk and he looks suitably worried and nervous enough until the famous Captain America directly brings him up. "Word is, you can find the cube."
His gaze sharpens before he can stop himself. "Is that the only word you've heard about me?"
There's a moment's pause. "Only word I care about."
And Bruce knows he's lying because his feet shuffle side to side and his fingers twitch and though his eyes are steady his body isn't. He bites down a vicious laugh and instead nods, turning to head inside.
Nick Fury looks quite intimidating but Natasha is also there, and he's feeling rebellious. So he talks with words that slip from his mind strong and powerful, listing off reasons and things they'll need to find their cube.
Fury just nods and points to Natasha. She shows him to the lab, and it's then that he starts smiling.
Because the room is nice and there are things that he actually needs, and plenty more he doesn't. He waits until she is out of the room before starting to work, bringing up both the cube and also his next fake town. If SHIELD is even half as smart as he hopes then they'll be scanning what he's doing, and they'll see this town he's pulled up. They'll head there first while he ducks off to another part of the world.
They're in a room, talking back and forth with a new guy, some all-powerful being who makes himself a god. Bruce doesn't doubt that he's strong, but the other guy is stronger, and so he slides Thor into the same category as most of the other agents in the room - needs to keep an eye on but others come first.
He tosses out more of his genius because he has to be smart enough for Fury to leave him alone but then something happens, something brilliant.
Another man steps into the room, happy swagger in his step and casual metal in his hand. He shoots back with just as much genius as Bruce has shown, and its done in such a simple way that shows he doesn't have to think much about it. Tony Stark.
He insults Fury in a simple way that shows he's been doing that for years and then admits something that Bruce tells is a lie. He's been studying this on and off for a while, not just last night.
Bruce slips out a hint more, more than he had last time. Tony meets him headstrong, challenging him back with another thought. He jumps straight back, and Tony laughs with his eyes as he answers.
"Finally, someone who speaks English!"
Everyone looks confused except for the spies and Fury himself, who just raises an eyebrow.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled, and I'm a huge fan of how you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."
His voice is soft on lose control and his smile is wide and welcoming, and he returns it with a careful twist of his head. "Thanks."
And they talk but he's welcoming Tony into the lab on the Helicarrier, and the way the man marches in without even looking around tells him that Tony has been here before. Or built it.
They trade genius for a little more before Tony drops a hint about him staying at the Stark Tower, eyebrow raised. There's something soft in the man that he sees and he prays that Tony will see the undertones. "Sorry, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem."
And Tony blinks once, head tilting. He nods once before smiling blindingly, and Bruce knows that Tony has analyzed every sentence, every word, every pause. He's been doing it to everyone since the second he's been in a room with more than one person, and Bruce finally feels comfortable because so does he, and he wants a contest.
It's the first time he has seen someone else have a reason to do it. Tony's been raised in the public eye since he was two, and becoming Iron Man has only made it worse. Threats rain from every corner, just like with Bruce himself.
He needs to come to the Tower so they can talk because he doesn't trust this Helicarrier.
And then Tony stabs him with something, and he jerks back. The other guy grumbles inside his head and he's clenching his hands but that's it. One annoyed rumble from the pain but he's not threatened. The other guy accepts Tony much faster than even he expected.
But Captain America steps forward, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed. "Hey!"
Tony glances up, the picture for calm superiority. "Yeah?" But he turns back to Bruce, smiling. "Well, you've certainly got a tight lid on it. What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"
He chokes up, emerging with laughter on his tongue.
Captain America is trying to talk to Tony, but the man isn't listening. Hasn't been listening ever since they were on the plane, ever since they were on the Helicarrier, probably ever since either of them have existed.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on the ship isn't funny. No offense, Doctor."
And he's insulted again. As if he would lose control over a single poke. Captain America - Rodgers - doesn't even give him a name. He's Doctor.
More talking, and he slowly tries to show Rodgers he doesn't care about the little politics in the Helicarrier.
Oh, he does, but Rodgers doesn't need to know that.
Then Tony slips out that his AI, JARVIS, has already been hacking this place since the moment he got there. Yes, they need to talk. He may still escape back to China he thinks, but there's also the chance that he might stay with this man that's been hiding himself just as easily as he has.
He will most likely be dragged off to the Tower, if Tony's way of hiding himself has any ideas. He's too loud, too confident, too careless. Plays off narcissism.
Bruce wonders whether any of the fancy spies that Fury has dotted over the entire place of SHIELD have seen anything wrong with their residential genius, the man Fury calls upon to help the Hulk find a cube. Whether they see anything wrong with how his smiles curl too far and he slips pieces of metal underneath desks and electronics glint from nearly every part of his body.
Somehow, he doubts that they have.
And he also doubts that they have seen anything from him yet. He's a genius, and Tony has already stolen that title, so he'll go for a man who a little too much about radiation, the man who made a mistake due to arrogance and has been reduced to a nervous, twitching man who gives in too easily.
He knows Fury wants him on the battlefield so maybe he'll do that as well, make up some lies about the other guy.
Because if they only see him for his brawn, they don't deserve to know that he could kill them with his brain as well.
Hey, y'all! It's me again with another Avengers fic!
I know I've seen these so many times for Tony and I'm definitely doing one for him as well, but Bruce is one I've never seen before. And that just doesn't make sense.
The man's a genius - that's pretty obvious by escaping from so many government agencies while on the run. People don't seem to realize that this man was able to match head to head with Tony Stark and then fool Natasha Romanoff.
So I feel that Fury severely overestimated when he thought that Natasha and Steve and Clint could handle the man who's stayed away from the world without so much as a blinked eye.
Also, I really like the idea of him and Tony just being super smart together. Maybe I'll write a follow up of them meeting in the Tower. I don't know yet.
Anyway! Please read and review!
Frost OUT!