"Hell..." Bruce murmured as he slowly came to. Bleeping. Blinking noise beside him. Beep. Beep. Beep. he was in medical then. He groaned and reached up to his head. He felt so tired, so light-headed. His head, strangely, felt empty and clear. He sat up and immediately regretted it, sinking back into the bed.
"I'm so sorry, Bruce." Came a voice by his side. Bruce squinted awkwardly, wondering where his glasses were. "Oh right, sorry," came the voice, and Bruce was aware of someone struggling to put his glasses on for him. He blinked when they were on.
"Tony?"
The genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist smiled, sympathetically.
"You alright?" He asked. Bruce grimaced, guessing it would be less painful than shaking his head.
"Not really. I've got a headache, and I'm dizzy, and light-headed. it's weird, my head feels empty, kinda clear. What drugs did they give me? You think Fury would let me have them with my daily relaxants?"
Tony chuckled at that, then frowned.
"Bruce they...they didn't give you any drugs. Just some glucose in fluid. For energy. I guess my arm device kind of...overworked. I-"
"Arm device? What arm device?" Bruce interrupted, frowning in confusion.
Tony sighed, holding it up.
"It's designed to transfer energy from one source to the other. It stores it and converts it so the arc reactor and my suits can use it. Pretty cool eh? Although, I didn't have a good energy source to try it on, so I uh...provoked you, so I could nab some of the Hulk's."
Bruce's eyes widened.
"You...you did what?!"
Tony carried on his explanation, ignoring Bruce's outcry.
"Anyway, somehow it must have taken your energy as well as the Hulk's, which explains why you blacked out. I guess it explains why you feel light-headed and 'empty', the Hulk must still be unconscious...or...well, maybe he's, you know, gone."
Bruce slowly nodded, processing this new information.
"Give it back." He said solemnly, holding out his arm.
Tony blinked in confusion.
"But Bruce! How long have you waited for him to be gone from your head? To have peace and quiet in your mind? Besides, think how much good I could do to help the world with this new strength!"
"No, Tony. Give it back now. It's dangerous." Bruce replied, his voice flat and serious, thrusting his arm at him again.
Tony frowned and stepped back.
"No! I won't! You can't stop me! Besides, I'm doing the world a favour, getting rid of the Hulk!"
Tony sat up, ignoring the pain,
"His name," he spat, "is The Other Guy. Now stop this Tony, give me my damned energy back, you're going power crazy!"
His eyes flashed green for a second in his anger, then fizzled out back to his usual doe-eyed brown. Tony laughed.
"Is that it? Oooh Bruce no, stop it, I'm so scared!" He giggled and ran out the room.
Bruce lay back in his bed and sobbed. What was he going to do? His only real friend had turned on him, and now he was turning into another villain. He hated to admit it, but he only had this job because of the Other Guy. Who would want a shy, plain old scientist with depression to work in such an organisation like SHIELD?! Tony was right though, he had done the world a favour. Is that what he was really here for? So they could keep an eye on him, know where he was? Occasionally lock him up if they were scared?
Bruce slipped into a fitful slumber in his still weak state. He dreamt of tearing apart Harlem, of running for his life, of Betty, Betty in the hospital, Betty betraying him to her father, of his own father, of his beautiful mother, and being locked in an underground facility when Betty had abandoned him.