Toni pulled her mask off quickly, and threw it off into a pile of decimated building that surrounded her. Pain laced up her side with every breath she drew. Blood trickled from her side where her armor had pierced her shallowly during a fight. And if she was being totally honest with herself, it had probably pierced into her lung, or snagged itself on some other organ that she really needed to stay alive. In short everything about this mission was going to hell in a hand basket, and she was being dragged along for the ride.

She stumbled through debris and rubble clumsily, half tripping over rocks and pieces of bent metal that were strewn across the ground. Pain laced its way through her chest softly, and she looked down curiously, to be greeted with the sight of a flickering, cracked arc reactor, and she had thought the day was looking up. She watched the failing reactor critically, and mentally calculated how long she had until she went into cardiac arrest and had shrapnel take out her arteries, she had an hour. And that was being generous with her calculations. She sped up as best as she could with metal slicing into her calf, and desperately tried to draw in gasping breaths through seemingly broken ribs. Blood pooled out of all the holes and cracks in her suit, staining it a sickly hue of blackening red that she, hysterically, thought looked really ugly next to the shiny gold accents.

She pulled off as much of her suit as she could with her bare hands, slicing them up in the process. She threw metal off of her, reveling cuts and bruises galore. She looked like some sadist's wet dream, and probably felt much worse. She managed to pull the crushed metal off her leg with a strangled cry. Blood splattered around her and stained ruined streets. She looked around the desolate area desperate for any sign that the other avengers were somewhere nearby.

Panic bubbled in her stomach; it was thick and sickly, making her stomach heave painfully. It crawled through her veins, sluggishly oozing its way through her entire body, spreading its toxic fumes. She was going to die. If she didn't find someone soon, preferably right now, she was going to fucking die. Her heart thudded frantically, and the light of her reactor flickered and dimmed. She tried to calm herself down when she realized that her elevated blood pressure and heart rate were steadily draining the arc reactor of whatever life it still had left in it. Where the hell was Bruce and his funny heart control-ie techniques when she needed them?

She limped along the streets quickly, mentally panicking, until she saw a hulking green shape amongst the rubble before her. Hulk. She hoped to fuck he was in a good mood, because even though she knew he'd never purposely hurt her, she'd never actually gotten that close to him to test that theory, especially without her suit. But Bruce was her science bro, and she really didn't think that Hulk was out to destroy everything. He was like an abused kid that had never learned to trust the people around him. Toni could definitely relate to that, and it wasn't like she had much of a choice. It was either take a chance and hope she didn't get smashed by an angry Hulk, oooorrr have her heart pulverized by shrapnel. With that wonderfully cheerful thought she gimped her way over to him as quickly as she could.

The Hulk whirled around at her approach, fists held in the air ready to beat the living snot out of whoever was approaching. Toni slowed down a bit, okay she slowed down a lot, and held up her hands in a placating gesture, "Bruce, it's me… Toni. I'm not gonna hurt you bro. But I really need your help Big Guy."

He looked at her for a long moment searching her face curiously, before lowering his fists slowly, "To-ni?"

She nodded a bit frantically and pushed her bloody hair out of her face so he could recognize her better, "Yea, Toni. I need your help Big Guy."

The Hulk smiled at her as best as he could and nodded eagerly, "Hulk help To-ni." He lumbered over to her, and sat down right in front of her. The ground under her feet shook slightly at the impact and the resulting pain sent a wave of nausea through her. She was more than ready to pass out at this point. He seemed so cute though, so she could hardly complain about the pain.

"I need you to rip the rest of my suit off of me, and get me back to Stark Towers." Her lungs screamed a violent protest with every word she spoke, and her ribs ached every time she pulled in even small breaths. She rubbed her chest absently and realized that she only had about 15 minutes left to get back to the tower and fix her reactor, "Think you can do that for me Big Guy?"

Hulk seemed to think her words over, before moving closer to her and grasping her armor in his giant hands. He looked at her for a moment, like he was making sure he wasn't doing the wrong thing, before tearing the armor off her body quickly. Toni whimpered in agony when the sharp metal was roughly pulled out of her tender sides. Blood gushed out of the reopened wounds and dripped down her side slowly.

Hulk looked at her sadly and held his hands in his hair like he expected her to beat him "Hulk no want hurt To-ni. Hulk no mean hurt To-ni."

She looked up at him, more than a little surprised at how upset he seemed over hurting her. He didn't have a problem bro fisting Thor in the face. She smiled reassuringly and walked closer to him carefully, "You didn't hurt me Big Guy. Antlers did."

"Puny God."

Toni laughed loudly at the petulant tone of voice Hulk seemed to adopt whenever he thought about Loki. She laughed even though her ribs protested vehemently. But damn it all if Bruce couldn't always manage to put her in a good mood. She grinned a bit and looked back up at him, "Think you can get us home quickly?"

Hulk nodded down at her, eager to help, "Hulk fast." He picked her up gently and cradled her against his chest softly. His skin was warm against her, and she realized just how pale and cold she was sitting right against him. His green skin was a stark contrast to her pale and slightly bloody hands.

He held her close to his body as he jumped and ran at breakneck speed toward Stark Tower. His giant hand held her steadily against his chest, and kept her stable enough that she could barely feel all the jolting movements he made. After what seemed like a life time he crashed, literally, into the top floor of Stark Towers. Glass tinkled around them and sprayed out into the room, coating everything in a sharp, translucent dust.

"Jarvis!" Toni's voice rang out weakly as Hulk set her down gingerly.

"Yes Miss Stark?"

She walked across the room quickly and pulled a safe out from a hidden compartment in the bar. She set it down on the counter with a dull thunk, and began to type a code into it quickly, "Set up a heart monitor, and x-ray my side. I think I've got a few broken ribs." She pulled out an arc reactor quickly; the metal was cool against her skin.

She set it down carefully, and began to unbutton the shirt she had on. She pulled it off quickly and began to stick tiny little heart monitors across her chest carefully.

"Puny Banner worry for To-ni. Think Hulk want hurt To-ni," she turned to face him and watched quietly as he looked at her sadly, "Hulk no want To-ni hurt. Hulk worry for tiny To-ni too." She was taken aback by the slight fear that resounded in that deep voice. And a bit choked up by the genuine care that the Hulk expressed through his caveman like words. She'd been working with Bruce for months, and she'd come to expect it from him. But to hear it from his alter-ego? Bruce must really care about her to influence the Hulk. Or maybe Hulk was a separate entity from Bruce, and he wanted to express concern over her too. Either way, it was nice for someone to care about her.

"You want to help me right Big Guy?" she smiled when he nodded at her, "then I need you to get Bruce back out here for me."

"To-ni no want Hulk?" his voice was so hurt, that Toni felt a bit guilty for asking him to leave, but she really didn't think his hand was going to fit in her chest, well, it wasn't going to fit in easily, and she really only had 4 minutes left before her heart was shredded to tiny bits.

"I do," she tapped her arc reactor lightly, "but your hands are too big. I need Bruce to replace this for me; otherwise I'm going to die."

Hulk gave her a frightened look, "Hulk no want To-ni gone." With that he began to slowly shrink back into Bruce. It took a moment for him to get his bearings, and when he did he was greeted with the sight of a topless Toni standing right in front of him. He blushed slightly, and caught the glasses that were casually tossed to him. He looked up at her a bit nervously, "You sure I can replace the reactor? I'm not an engineer Toni. What if I mess it up?" He'd deal with the fact that she'd gotten waaaay too close to the Hulk later.

"I'll lead you through it," she began to unscrew the reactor in her chest, "pretty much all you have to do is make sure the two magnets connect, and then screw the new reactor in tightly." She handed him the reactor lightly, and pulled the old one out of her chest, carefully to keep the magnets connected.

"Why do I have to screw it back in?"

"Because I'm going to be too busy going into cardiac arrest to accurately screw the damn thing back in."

"I suppose that's a good enough reason," he muttered quietly, and watched with horrified fascination as his best friend pull the reactor out of her chest with a sharp tug.

The heart monitor screeched shrilly as Toni gripped the counter tightly. She watched shakily as Bruce attached the magnets and began to screw the reactor back into her chest carefully.

There was a tiny click, and her heart slowed back to a normal rhythm, instinctively realizing that the danger was over. Toni relaxed her death grip on the counter and took a few deep breaths. Pain still laced up her side, but not as sharply as before. "Jarvis, did you do the x-ray?"

"Yes Miss. Stark, you have a few bruised ribs, but thankfully nothing was broken."

Bruce watched her warily, half waiting for her to suddenly collapse in front of him, "You alright now?"

His voiced washed over her soothingly, and Toni relaxed slightly. She looked over at him and smiled cockily, "It'll take more than a pair of antlers to kill me. Thanks to you and the Big Guy, I'd say crisis adverted."

Bruce's eyes darkened slightly when she mentioned the Hulk, and he looked at her sternly, "Toni what were you thinking? He could have easily killed you."

Toni rolled her eyes a bit and began to wrap her ribs tightly. Yea he could have killed her, but that was all theoretical, and she took a calculated risk. Not that she was going to tell him there was a 92% chance that Hulk wouldn't have recognized her. An 8% chance of survival was better than zero in her book.

"Toni are you listening to me? This is serious, Hulk is dangerous and even with your suit you're vulnerable around him." Annoyance tinged with genuine worry rolled along with his words when he spoke, "Why would you do something so reckless?"

"Bruce, calm your tits. I'm fine. He didn't mind my presence and all things considered I'd say it ended pretty well. Seriously," she pulled on a shirt and began buttoning it up deftly, "you're over reacting, and if you keep working yourself up you're going to go green again. He saved me, Big Green was happy, you're back here conscious and not naked, and my heart hasn't been turned into hamburger. I'd say this has been a fairly productive day."

"Toni this isn't a joke," serious brown eyes watched her accusingly, "you were badly hurt, and you couldn't have ran if he tried to smash you. Why didn't you have your suit on?!"

Toni shrugged nonchalantly and poured herself a few fingers of whiskey, "I had it on, but Hulk ripped it off for me." She downed the drink quickly relishing in the burn, and the slight distraction from the annoying pains her body was throwing at her.

"He ripped it off?" Bruce echoed back at her horrified, "Toni have you completely lost your mind?! You had him rip off your armor! He could have easily ripped you."

"But he didn't Bruce," she held up her hand when he began to argue, and waited for him to fall silent before continuing on seriously, "hasn't killed me. Didn't kill me. Didn't try to kill me. Doesn't seem to want to kill me. You, my science buddy, are just jealous that he got to cuddle with me the entire way here."

Bruce clenched his jaw and mentally ran through all the advanced physics, and gamma theories he could possible think of. Everything in the world was a joke with Toni. Everything. She obviously didn't have a self preserving bone in her body. How could she not realize how devastated he would be if he ended up killing his only friend? She was the only person who had met him knowing what he was, and treated him like a person regardless. She'd always valued his opinion and intellect, and they had quickly grown to be friends. God only knew what he would do if Toni died because of him.

Toni watched him quietly feeling little pins of guilt over having bugged her friend so badly. She tried to walk to him, but her legs nearly gave out from beneath her, and she did not want to spend the rest of the day in the hospital getting shards of glass pulled out of her skin, so she settled for smiling at him and changing the topic, "Now that we've gotten this lovely conversation out of our system, where the fuck was everyone else?"

Bruce accepted the change of topic gracefully, but made mental notes to make sure he talked to her again about staying away from the Hulk. He really didn't care if she was a fan of "the way he lost control and turned into a giant green rage monster." He walked over to her carefully, avoiding the broken glass and helped support her subtly. He felt a small tinge of satisfaction when she let him help her along; if it had been anyone else she would have point blank refused their help. "I don't know where everyone went off to. Thor was with Steve, and Clint was fighting with Natasha. You flew off sometime during the middle, and then I lost control."

"Alright, I guess there's no helping that," she leaned against his arm as little as she could muster, but finally gave in and leaned against him heavily. Even when he wasn't hulked out, he was a lot taller than her. He felt solid and warm, supporting her like he always did, "Jarvis important things first. Get the damn wall fixed would you? Our contractors must really love me."

"Right away Miss. Stark."

Toni smiled a bit when she felt Bruce's soft rumble of laughter. At least he was in a better mood now. She walked out of the bar room with him quietly, mulling over what had happened with the Hulk. Why the hell hadn't he killed her? He'd gotten out once and tried to take out Tasha and Thor, but he hadn't even rushed at her. The worst he'd done was raise his hand and that had been a purely defensive gesture on his part.

Bruce watched Toni for a moment, knowing that pensive look on her face that signaled she was about to do something either extremely smart, or extremely stupid. And he really hoped that it wasn't something stupid. The last time she had that look on her face they all ended up with pink hair. And a Hulk sized fist in her wall. Her limp grew more pronounced as they wandered down the hall, so he scooped her up carefully. He was amazed at how much smaller than him she was. She'd always seemed so sturdy. Maybe it was her injury, but holding her she felt so tiny.

"The hell? Bruce I can walk perfectly fine I'm not a gimp," she flailed a bit and tried to get him to put her down to no avail. The stubborn bastard obviously wasn't budging.

"Toni you're limping, you're going to cause more damage to your leg and then you'll be pissed at everything because Fury won't let you play with the big kids when you're hurt." He smirked slightly and held her tight enough to keep her from escaping, "so play nice and maybe he'll give you a popsicle."

"Bastard."

He smiled at her amused tone and looked at her innocently, "Me? Whatever gave you that idea?"