Ok, I don't really know where this came from, I think it had something to do with the shock that Natasha (Black Widow) was in after she saw Bruce transform into the Hulk in The Avengers. Couple that with the idea that I really wanted to write a bit of a fic where the Doctor is danger to Rose, and here we are. Basically, it's the Doctor meets the Hulk. It was meant to be just a funny bit of fluff, but really there's quite a bit of angst and Doctor!whump, so be prepared. Enjoy!
"What is it?"
"There's...something."
"Oh brilliant, it's a good thing you aren't being really vague or I wouldn't have known what on earth you were talking about."
The Doctor looked up from where he had been examining the TARDIS controls, to see Rose looking extremely not amused.
"Hey, there's no need for sarcasm!" he protested and Rose sighed, folding her arms and continuing to stare at him.
"Are you gonna tell me or not?"
"Well it's hard to explain, it's like there's something tickling at the back of my mind, something that shouldn't be there, but I can't tell what it is."
"Did you forget to put the handbrake on the TARDIS?" Rose smirked, and now it was the Doctor's turn to stare at her.
"Rose please, we're in flight; of course I don't need the handbrake on. No, there's definitely something wrong, maybe some sort of foreign bacteria or something."
Rose wandered around the TARDIS console until she was standing right next to the Doctor, peering at the monitor and trying (unsuccessfully) to make out some of the symbols showing on the screen. "So you've got some sort of bacteria in you – like you've got a cold or something?"
"Sort of," the Doctor replied, continuing to examine the screen and pressing a few buttons, "it's a bit different than simple human bacteria; if it's affecting my brain in this way then that means it's probably transferred telepathically, so you should be fine."
"Yes, because of course I was pretending to care about the alien bacteria in your brain, when actually I was only concerned about myself."
The Doctor elbowed her in the ribs. "I was actually reassuring myself, I'll have you know. Superior Timelord biology means that I'll probably be able to fight it off no problem, but your rubbish human immune system would probably struggle."
"It's funny," said Rose, leaning back against the console and folding her arms again, "even in the midst of being all concerned about my safety and really quite sweet, you still manage to brag about your superiority and massage your massive ego."
The Doctor chose to ignore this remark. "There, I'm running a scan that should pinpoint the bacteria and let me know how long it's going to take for my body to fight it off."
Rose twisted her hands together as she waited and stared up at the ceiling. She was a bit tired from their trek around a jungle planet that morning, and her leg still ached from where the Doctor had shoved her into a tree to avoid getting jumped on by that planet's version of a tiger. She sighed, rubbing her eyes and avoiding the Doctor's eyes - she could tell he was looking at her with concern. He often had to remind her to sleep, their lifestyle meant that days and nights didn't happen in the way she had always been used to, and more than once the Doctor had turned around to find her fast asleep in the captain's chair in the console room. Rose enjoyed these occasions because, even though she wasn't aware of what was going on at the time, she always woke up with the Doctor's long, brown coat draped over her. It smelled like him and, even though she was sleeping in a chair that couldn't be described as "comfy", Rose always slept better with the Doctor's coat as a blanket, her fingers curled tightly around the collar.
"Stop that, I'm not going to sleep until the scan has finished."
"Stop what?"
"Stop looking at me like you always do when you think I need sleep, right now we're worrying about you, once the scan has finished and we know you're not going to drop down dead then maybe I'll take a nap in the chair."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Fine then. And for the record, I wasn't worrying about you; I just want to make sure that you have enough sleep so that next time we're off on a trip you don't nearly get eaten by an alien tiger because you're not paying attention!"
A loud beeping from the TARDIS console distracted Rose from her next scathing comment, and she peered at the screen as the Doctor began to read the results.
"No no no no no!" The Doctor had grabbed the screen and pulled it towards him, reading the symbols frantically, hands reaching up to grab fistfuls of his hair.
"What is it?"
The Doctor looked at her, hands falling down from his head to hang by his sides. "Sorry about that, overreacted just a little bit, just call me a drama queen."
"I do, frequently, behind your back." Her joke was feeble, but Rose could still see a tiny amount of panic behind the Doctor's eyes, and she needed to reassure him that everything was normal. "But what is it?"
"It's Banner's disease."
Rose nodded. "OK...what's Banner's disease."
The Doctor sighed, rubbing his eyes. "it's hard to explain, you're probably not going to believe it."
Rose raised an eyebrow. "Listen Doctor," she said, "if I can't believe about this one disease after everything I've seen with you, then feel free to kick me off the TARDIS this instant!"
The Doctor smiled, though Rose noticed, unnervingly, that it didn't reach his eyes. "Well, OK. Did you ever watch 'The Incredible Hulk'?"
Rose was incredibly confused, but she answered the question. "Bits of it? I mean, I know basically what happens."
"And what happens?"
"Well...Bruce Banner gets hit with radiation or something like that, and he ends up turning into a massive green monster every time he gets angry and smashing stuff."
"Correct. Well, in essentials. The point, however, is that the comic books, the films and everything else weren't actually fiction. Well, they were, but the original germ of the story came from a notebook that someone, who shall not be named, left on Earth in the past accidentally through no fault of his own."
"So you're saying you started the idea for the Hulk?"
The Doctor nodded, and Rose was amused to see that, even in this situation, he was still looking slightly smug. "The real story comes from the scientist Bruce Banner, who was a human working on a planet colonised by humans in the year 4027. He was doing some experiments regarding human emotions but something went wrong."
"Doctor, no offence, but you really don't look good," Rose interrupted. The Doctor's eyes were over bright, his body was tense and his hands were beginning to shake.
"Just hear me out Rose; you've got to understand this." Rose was shocked by the urgency with which he spoke. "He created a bacteria which only affects telepaths, it works its way into the emotion centre of the brain and remains dormant until there is a surge of emotion, most often anger. When the emotion—"
"Oh my god," Rose was beginning to grin, "you're telling me that there is bacteria that makes you 'hulk out'? That you get angry and turn into a green monster?"
"It's not always green, but yes, that it what I'm telling you."
"Well it's a good thing all you'll have to do is stay calm and you'll be fine. You mean that you would actually, like, go all big and green and 'you won't like me when I'm angry!'?" Rose was laughing now, imagining a big green version of the Doctor smashing up buildings, throwing cars and roaring.
"Really Rose, it's not actually a laughing matter."
Rose's giggle stopped mid flow. The Doctor was hunched over, breathing heavily. Rose moved towards him, determined to help him in some way, to stop his pain, just to grab him and hold him and tell him he would be fine.
"No," he shouted, backing away a couple of steps, face contorted into a grimace. Rose jumped back, shocked. The Doctor barely ever shouted at her, his face was a mix of anger and pain and she had no idea what was happening to him.
"Doctor, what can I do? Doctor, tell me what you need me to do!"Rose shouted, voice getting louder and louder as the Doctor groaned in pain, falling to his knees.
"Rose, I can fight it but not for long. You've got to get away. Find somewhere to hide, just get as far away from me as you can! I'm a Timelord, I can fight off the infection but it's going to take a while, I'll be dangerous and I won't be able to control my actions!"
"But you said it fed on anger!" Rose was panicking now – the Doctor couldn't be a danger to her, the Doctor always got them out of danger (well, apart from when it was Rose doing the rescuing.) "You were perfectly fine a minute ago, you were laughing!"
The Doctor laughed: the sound was harsh and inhuman. "The things I've done, Rose, the amount of people I haven't been able to save? There's enough anger in me that it doesn't need to be right there on the surface, this thing can find it and it's using it." He clenched his fists tighter, knuckles turning white. "Rose, I can't stop it, get away!"
The Doctor's back arched and Rose heard a cracking noise as his face screwed up in pain. She took a deep breath, standing still and controlling the shaking in her hands. "I am not leaving you here," she said, as calmly as she could, though it was hard not to lose control when she saw the Doctor in this much pain, "there must be something I can do."
The Doctor shook his head furiously, managing to open his eyes and lock them directly onto Rose's. "All you can do is wait, my body'll fight it off and I'll return to normal but until then you've got to get out of my way."
"No, I can't—"
"Please, Rose!" the Doctor shouted desperately, still managing to look at her even though his body was beginning to convulse with the pain, "please just go, I am not going to hurt you, you can't let that happen, just get away! I'll be back before you know it but you have got to get away from here now!"
Rose couldn't take her eyes from his face as it contorted, his eyes squeezing shut and his teeth gritted. "GO!" he bellowed, and Rose sprinted towards the corridor, pausing in the doorway and turning back. The Doctor's body was changing, his arms and legs bulging, clothes ripping, his skin developing a tinge of green as he screamed.
"You have got to be kidding me," said Rose weakly as she witnessed the transformation of the Doctor, hardly able to believe that something she had thought would be funny a couple of minutes ago could be so utterly terrifying.
This was just supposed to be a little one shot, but I've extended it to two (or possibly three) chapters. Hope you liked it! Feel free to review :)
P.S. my tumblr url is donna-and-her-spaceman. It's very Doctor Who and DoctorxRose centred. Just in case you wanted to know...