He felt horrible. His stomach was flipping. His head was spinning. The muscles in his body prevented him from moving, screaming too loud for him to think. He didn't know where he was. The pain was sharp. He noticed that he was naked, laying in the mud, and apparently the sun was rising, because the light was intensifying. The air he breathed in was humid, making him work for his oxygen, and what he could see from his position on the ground were mainly plants and trees. It was safe to conclude that he was buck-ass naked somewhere in a forest, and most likely this forest was NOT in New York City. He lay there for god knows how long. In pain and alone, apart from the brush of hair that warmed his leg. His breath caught. He shouldn't be feeling a brush of hair pressed to his leg. Ignoring the stubborn dullness in his head, he focused. He could feel a warmth, close to his left leg, and that warm thing breathed. It was a deep breath, like a humans. There was a slight purring sound that was woven through it, not familiar, but not quite unfamiliar either. Bruce listened. It's steady pattern held on for a good few minutes. Whoever, or whatever was breathing next to him appeared to be asleep. Bruce tried to lift his head. It hurt. He almost yelped when a particularly sore muscle refused to cooperate, but he kept it in. Don't startle it, Bruce. Don't want to wake an angry grizzly.
"I wouldn't try to move too fast, if I were you."
Bruce sat upright with a jerk, immediately regretting it when a fresh wave of nauseating pain hit him, drowning out every thought. After a minute, he found his head was cradled in his hands, fingers gripping his face tightly in an attempt for control. Relaxing them, he made a quick calculation. There was someone here, pressed against him while he lay naked and in pain in a forest god-knows-where. But said person hadn't attacked him.
He lifted his head gingerly. A large cat stared at him from its position at his left leg. Bruce blinked at it. Well, the warmth was explained. He quickly scanned his surroundings. No one. He looked back at the cat, who was still staring at him worriedly. A cat can't look worried, Bruce. He narrowed his eyes. But why did this one do?
"Do you think you can walk?"
Well, seems like I'll have to go to a mental hospital.
There was no explanation. The cat was not talking to him, no, that was insane. No cat could talk, right?
But this one did, Bruce.
The cat uncurled itself from its comfortable position and watched Bruce struggle with himself.
The cat hadn't talked. No. Definitely not. It must've been a trick of his mind. After all, he was lying in the mud, naked and definitely not well. He must be hallucinating, yes. Desperate for any kind of human contact, he must've gone a little mad.
"Look, your muscles are still in first recovery and we don't know what more damage the gamma radiation has done to your system, so take it slow, but, Bruce, we need to move."
Bruce refused to turn his head this time. Insisting his brain that it was wrong.
The cat sighed, it sighed.
"Look, Bruce, we don't have time for this. You've got to listen to me and we have got to move."
Bruce peeked at the cat from the corner of his eye. It was the cat that was talking. It's jaw moved in sync with the words.
"You are dehydrated and need water. They are probably looking all over for you. We don't know where we are, and you have no clothes. We need to go."
It was talking. Talking! And making sense at that! Which made no sense at all. He was losing it, for sure. But it was an invention of his mind. So, the ideas of the cat, were really his ideas, right? So that meant he was just talking to a sensible part of his brain?
"Bruce, can you move?"
Bruce stared at it for a second. "But… you're a cat…" he wondered.
The cat swept its tail. "Well, that could be argued about at some points, but in essence, I am indeed a cat. Now, can you stand?"
"I'm losing it, right?" Bruce said, more to himself than to the cat in particular, because cats couldn't talk, but this one did and what the fuck was going on.
The cat sighed impatiently. (It sighed!)
"I'm sorry, but this is going to take a long time if you're going to be like this, and really we don't have much time. So let me answer this very quickly for you. No, you are not dreaming, yes, I am talking to you, no, you're not going mad. Now could you please try to stand?"
Bruce hesitated for another moment, before slowly getting up. He was really doing this? Listening to a hallucination of his mind? He was mad. But even if it's a hallucination, Bruce, it's a hallucination that makes sense.
"Good," the cat said satisfied, "now follow me." And Bruce did.
Slowly but securely they made their way through the forest. Bruce wasn't sure where the cat was headed, but he had a feeling that it was more capable of finding a way then he was at the moment, so he clenched his teeth and ignored the stabbing pain in his legs. A few times the cat stopped to let him catch up. It never went too far ahead, staying close to Bruce. This reassured him.
They went on for a good hour and half like this. Walking, stopping, walking, stopping, walking again. After a while, they hit a small stream, and Bruce gratefully drank. The cat watched him closely while he downed a good liter. When he was finished it gave him a satisfied look. Cats can't look satisfied, Bruce.
Just because he followed his imagination, didn't mean he had to be at ease doing so.
The cat lead them further upstream.
"There will be a good chance we'll find civilization there." Definitely the more sensible part of his mind right now.
They found civilization- or rather: people.
After a few miles of following the river, they stumbled across a large group. And when Bruce had secretly slipped passed them, they found their home. Or rather: a pile of rubble.
The village was leveled. Nothing but a few walls stood straight. There were a few men, wandering through the mess, looking lost above anything else.
The cat hung his head.
"What on earth has happened here..?" Bruce quietly asked.
A guilty feeling in his stomach told him he didn't want to know.
Suddenly one of the men shouted. He waved vigorously at the others, wildly gesturing at something at his feet. Then he dropped himself and started digging. A flash of a hand was visible before another four men crowded his vision. Bruce watched them intently from his hiding space. So intently, that he didn't saw the woman behind him until she screeched. In a second he stood and had his back turned, after another second he realized he was naked, and quickly covered himself. Trying to calm the panicked woman without using his hands proved quite challenging. People had been drawn to the tumult, and Bruce found himself surrounded by strange people, in the middle of a forest, completely and utterly naked. He couldn't help but flush.
The crowd was shouting at him in some foreign language. Obviously they thought he had tried to violate the woman. The cat had stepped closer to him as the people tightened their circle. Bruce couldn't run. He was locked in by hostile faces.
"Stand as still as you can. Sudden movements might trigger a violent reaction," the cat advised him. Bruce could feel his breaths come quicker, his heart rate increasing, and an anger, so vicious as he'd never felt before, entering his systems. These people didn't know anything. He hadn't tried to molest that woman. They were wrong. Wrong. He trembled.
"Bruce!" the cat alarmed him, "keep yourself under control. They don't know who you are. Their reaction is only logical from what they've seen."
Bruce closed his eyes and breathed. He tried his very best to keep himself calm. The cat was right once again. Breathe, Bruce. Breathe. It didn't help. The anger didn't go away. This isn't right, Bruce thought. This is no normal anger. And suddenly, he feared. What had he done? What had happened to him at the lab? How did he get here? He panicked. He couldn't lose it. Not here, not with these people. There was something awful in there, and if he set it loose…
A warm patch of fur curled itself around his leg, and he opened his eyes. The cat looked at him fiercely.
"You won't lose control," it said. And surprisingly, he believed it. He pushed his anger away with all his might. No, he wouldn't lose control. He could keep himself in check. He could do it.
The people were still screaming at him. Bruce tried. He had to find someone who spoke English. He could never explain it to them with body language without setting them off.
"Listen! Listen, people, please! Does anyone- hey! Does anyone here speak- ENGLISH, DOES ANYONE SPEAK ENGLISH!?" It came out a harsher then he'd meant, due to the still present anger. It did not exactly help to calm the crowd. Someone tugged at his arm, and a surprised Bruce shook him away violently in reflex.
"I am trying to help you!" an older man said to him, an urgent look on his face. "Please, stay where you are!" Bruce watched in wonder how he then took Bruce's arm again and proceeded shout back at the crowd in the same foreign language. The group slowly stilled. He kept talking ferociously, moving his hands wildly to emphasize his point- whatever it was. He then turned back to Bruce.
"Now, would you explain who are you?" he asked pointedly. Everyone's attention focused immediately back on Bruce.
"Well, ehm…" Bruce nervously said, "I am Bruce Banner. I am from America, and I don't mean any harm to you. My ehm… plane… crashed. My clothes were burning, so I had to take them of… and… ehm… could you please lend me a pair of trousers?"
Silence.
"Your plane crashed?" the cat asked incredulously. "Seriously, Bruce? That's the best you could do?"
"Oh, shut up," he whispered to it, which earned him a strange look from the man, before he turned to translate his little story to his spectators, who now seemed to be more curious than angry anymore.
"Come with me, Bruce Banner. I will find you clothes, if we have some left," the man smiled.
He followed the man quickly, the cat on his heels. They entered a large area, set up under a tree, away from the destruction. Wounded lay here. He saw people with broken arms and legs, cuts and scrapes. They were attended to by supposedly family. It was all clumsy, uncertain, and definitely not hygienic. Bruce cringed. The boy they had found under the stones was surrounded by five people who currently were trying to stop the heavy bleeding with a very ragged, very dirty cloth.
"Here you are," the man said and handed him an evenly dirty, but whole pair of trousers. Bruce gratefully accepted them. "Thank you," he said and slipped them on quickly. He glanced over at the boy again. He was in very bad shape.
"He's going to die."
The cat had spoken without doubt. "They can't help him. He will worsen." Bruce quickly glanced at the man to see if he had heard the cat, but he was staring at the scenery before him. His face was full of unspoken sadness.
"You could help him, Bruce," the cat spoke. "You know you can." Bruce bitterly turned his attention to his surroundings.
Yes, I know I can but they won't tolerate me.
"You don't know until you try," the cat said, looking up to him with an unidentified expression in its eyes. Bruce debated the matter in his head for a moment. It could be dangerous.. but…it was right. He had to try. He had to help them.
He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Sir, but could I ask you something?" Bruce asked.
The man looked up at Bruce's question and nodded.
"Are there any… medics in your… group? People who know about illness and wounds and stuff?" Bruce explained. A thoughtful look sled over the wrinkled face, but was then quickly followed by a look of grief. "No, we don't have any people like that here."
Bruce hesitated another moment. "These people… they need medical treatment, or they are going to die. You know that, right?"
"Yes, Bruce Banner, I know that. But we don't own the luxury of having medical treatment."
Bruce took another deep breath. "You have me."
A surprised look shot over the man's features.
"I could help them," Bruce continued quickly, ""I have had thorough medical training. I was a scientist. Please, it is the least I could do."
The man hesitated for a long moment.
"You can trust me," Bruce added.
"And you think you can help them?" he asked deliberately.
"Yes. I am sure of it," Bruce said decidedly.
"You want to take care of my people… make sure they survive?"
"Yes, sir, I would be honored to," Bruce pressed.
A moment of silence followed. The man seemed lost in thought. Then he spoke. "I don't know if I can trust you…" he hesitated another moment, "but my people need help. You can treat them."
Bruce let out a relieved sigh. "Thank you, sir."
He almost turned to head over to prevent the people of doing more damage to the little boy, but then he thought of something important.
"Ehm…" Bruce said uncomfortably, "could you please explain that to them, though? I don't think they want to let me help them."
The man smiled. "Of course."
And so Bruce spend the rest of the day bandaging wounds, treating sicknesses and supporting people. The cat didn't go away, like Bruce had expected from an hallucination. In fact, it supported him with his work. Notifying him when he had accidentally overlooked something, and morally supporting him with the more difficult patients. He stayed close to Bruce wherever he went, never leaving his side. When they lay down in one of the makeshift beds the civilians had created that night, they fell asleep soundly. He said we, because yes, the cat had become rather a person in Bruce's eyes over the day. It was always there. In a weird way, like a friend. And Bruce had a feeling that it wasn't going to go away soon. Which was a strangely comforting thought.