A/N:Wow, I'm a little overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response to this story! You guys are awesome! Thanks much to everyone who favorited, followed, and especially reviewed. I really appreciate all the love. :) Many thanks also to RedTigress and the Beta Branch for beta reading and helpful suggestions. I should mention that POV is going to switch around in no particular order throughout the story. On to chapter 2!

Entangled States

Chapter 2

"Wait, the Hulk is-" Steve stopped mid-thought, looking horrified by the prospect of Tony trying to control the Hulk.

Natasha said instantly: "Tranq him, Clint."

Clint didn't move. He glanced at Bruce. "We shouldn't, not while he's unconscious," Bruce said hastily, fearing for his body. When he spoke it was Tony's voice and it sounded unfamiliar in his ears. He suppressed a shudder and tried to focus on Steve. "He could slip into a coma."

Steve pulled himself together. "Banner, what are we looking at here?" he asked Bruce with a resigned sigh.

Bruce looked around uncertainly at the group. "Uh, to be honest? I'm not really sure. I don't know how the Other Guy is going to react to a different…consciousness."

"This is going to be a disaster," Natasha said, folding her arms across her chest. "I say we tranq him and deal with it later."

"I'm not sure that's necessary, Natasha. I think Tony is stubborn enough to keep the Other Guy in check," Bruce told her. His bright eyes flicked between his teammates, assessing their reactions. "It's mostly a matter of willpower and Tony's got that in droves."

"Sure he does," Clint muttered. "When it suits him."

"Bruce, it took you two years to learn to control it at all," Natasha snapped. Bruce winced inwardly. Despite the fact that they had been working together now for some time, she'd never really gotten over her fear of the Hulk and it was beginning to show.

"She has a point, Banner," Steve said. The words stung, but Bruce had to admit he was right.

"I didn't have anyone to help me through it," Bruce replied evenly. "I think I can talk Tony through the process if it comes to that. But we don't know it will. The Other Guy had a good run tonight; he should be pretty quiet for a while."

"We still have to get back to New York!" Natasha exclaimed. "We can't risk having Stark in the tower like this-"

"Guys," Clint interjected sharply, before Bruce could make a retort. "He's coming around."

To say Bruce was disconcerted to see his own body lying on the ground was an understatement, but it was even weirder to watch his own eyelids fluttering as Tony began to wake.

"Ouch," Tony moaned. His eyes, Bruce's eyes, finally opened. He blinked several times, looking disoriented. "What the?" He took a breath and froze with surprise. His hands flew instantly to his chest, feeling around for an arc reactor that was not there. "What the hell?" he exclaimed, looking up at Bruce.

"There's been an, uh, accident," Bruce told him nervously.

Tony's eyes widened as he recognized his own face, surrounded by his armor, looking down at him. He stared incredulously for a moment before saying: "Holy sh- is that you?"

Bruce gave him a faint smile. "Yeah."

Tony blinked rapidly several times. "So we-?"

"Yeah."

"How the hell-"

"Sounds like it was some kind of energy pulse," Bruce told him with a shrug.

"Glad we made that clear," Steve grumbled to Clint, who smirked. Natasha's pursed lips deepened into a genuine frown.

"The grenade," Tony mused. So far, he was taking the news pretty well, Bruce thought. He flung the emergency blanket out of the way and scowled. "Hey, what did you do to my suit?"

Tony jumped to his feet and stood on his toes (Bruce was already shorter than Tony, and in the armor he was taller than Steve) to get a look at the damage to the helmet. "Again with the faceplate! Goddamn it, Rogers, there's a release," he shot over his shoulder at the soldier. He stabbed Bruce's glowing chest with a bare finger. "You, bend," Tony ordered and Bruce obediently crouched. Tony fumbled with something that made clicking noises around his neck and wrestled the Iron Man helmet from his head. "Give me that. See if I can mitigate the damage Captain Failure did."

Tony plucked the faceplate from Bruce's hand and frowned down at it. The physicist glanced at Steve, who looked embarrassed. Clint looked like he was trying not to laugh, and Natasha just looked fed up.

"Pants, Tony," Bruce sighed. "I'd like to at least try to maintain some shreds of dignity, if possible."

Tony glanced up from where he was squinting (Bruce's glasses had been left onboard the jet) at the Iron Man helmet. He raised his eyebrows rakishly at the scientist. "Nothing we haven't all seen before, Banner."

"Tony!" Bruce groaned, feeling his cheeks redden with embarrassment. He could hear Clint tittering in the background. The scientist glared at him.

Clint guffawed once more before making a valiant effort to retreat behind one of his neutral agent expressions. "Sorry, man, but you gotta admit he has a point."

"Just do it, Stark," Natasha snapped at him. Bruce eyed her with dismay. She was trying to hide it, but she looked very, very tense. He resisted the urge to sigh again. He and Natasha were finally on decent terms, but she still wasn't very keen about the Other Guy. It had taken him months to get her to even get close to trusting him. Now it looked like Tony had reawakened all those old fears. Fantastic.

"As you can see, Romanoff, my hands are full. Unless you're volunteering…" Tony said without looking up.

Natasha's eyes flashed malevolently, but she said nothing. Clint laughed again and she shot him a scathing look. "What? It's just really funny coming from Banner!" the agent grinned.

Bruce grimaced and hid his face behind one of his armored hands. Steve was looking between the two of them while Tony fiddled with the faceplate. "I have no idea how I'm going to explain this to Director Fury-"

The physicist felt his heart leap into his throat. No. They couldn't tell Fury about this; it would be a disaster. A disaster filled with mutual mistrust and cages-

"No!" he exclaimed, only for Tony to say the same thing at the same time. They looked at each other in surprise for a moment, before continuing once again at the same time.

"You're not," Tony said flatly.

"There isn't going to be any explaining, Steve," Bruce said over him.

The solider looked annoyed. He didn't like it when they bent rules, and not informing Director Fury of their…problem probably broke about forty regulations. "But-"

"SHIELD does not need to know about this little mishap," Tony added. "Banner and I can figure it out. We don't need any interference."

Clint's expression was determinedly neutral, but Natasha looked downright mutinous. Bruce hoped she'd let them at least discuss the issue properly before taking matters into her own hands. "Fine. We'll talk about it later," Steve amended, with a wary glance at Tony. "Let's focus on getting home for now. Can you fix the helmet, Stark?"

The billionaire in Bruce's body didn't seem to notice the tension between his teammates, and Bruce hadn't noticed any outward signs that his friend was troubled by the Other Guy. He wondered if they could risk taking him in the quinjet. Getting home was going to be a pain if they couldn't.

The mask clicked in Tony's hands. "I think this'll do it," he announced. To Bruce's relief, he had hitched up what was left of his trousers. "Push down until it clicks twice. Not great but it should get you home."

Bruce accepted the mask gingerly with his clumsy gauntlets. He fumbled the helmet once while trying to put it over his head. Finally, it clicked into place. He jumped when the faceplate ground down automatically with the squeal of abused metal.

The HUD flared to life instantly, nearly dazzling the physicist. "Welcome back, Mr. Stark," JARVIS' cool voice was in his ears.

"Uh, actually I'm Bruce Banner," Bruce told the AI. "It's…complicated."

He thought he could hear a bare trace of surprise in the AI's response. "Very well, Dr. Banner. Readings from the arc reactor are holding steady now but I am detecting some minor damage to circuitry between the suit and the arc coupling, as a result of the electrical pulse. May I recommend not throwing yourself on alien weapons in the future?"

Bruce blinked. A schematic of the armor popped into view to one side, with power level readings and damage reports. Brilliant green circles flared to life around his teammates as his eyes flicked between them. He blinked again and the display magnified Steve's shield to alarmingly large proportions. Bruce jerked his head back instinctively before he realized that the display wasn't going anywhere, and it was a useless gesture. A row of icons popped up along the bottom of the HUD and Bruce flicked his eyes towards one that resembled a magnifying glass. His field of vision zoomed out and expanded again. Now he could see Tony's (well, his own) mouth moving and realized that the external microphones must be off.

"Uh, why not," he said absently. "JARVIS, I can't hear Tony. Can you fix that, please?"

An instant later, he could hear everything occurring outside the mask. Readouts on all of his teammates' vitals and other information were flooding his display. They seemed to change every time Bruce moved his eyes. It was a veritable flood of data and Bruce couldn't help feeling a bit overwhelmed. "While you're at it, can you pare these alerts down to the bare minimum?" he added.

"Banner?" Tony was saying from outside. He rapped on the mask with Bruce's bare knuckles. "Banner? You okay in there?"

"Uh, yeah," Bruce said. His voice, Tony's voice, sounded a bit dazed. The rush of data was exhilarating in a way, and the somewhat vain academic part of his brain relished the challenge of taking it all in. "It's…great."

Tony smiled knowingly. "First hit's free."

Clint guffawed again and Bruce himself chuckled. Tony was looking up at him expectantly. "Uh, looks like there's some electrical damage caused by the power surge, but nothing too bad. Arc's acting up a little, though. JARVIS says it's not a problem."

Tony's bare shoulders bobbed in a shrug. "It'll wait until we get home. But Banner, if you go green in my suit, so help me, you will put every damn piece back together."

Bruce winced behind his mask. Right. Somehow he had to break the news to Tony that he was going to have to deal with the Other Guy for the foreseeable future.

"JARVIS, how do I raise the faceplate?"

"Left chin button, sir."

Bruce nudged the button and the faceplate ground reluctantly backwards. He exchanged anxious looks with Steve and Clint. Natasha seemed to want no part in the impending conversation. Her fingers toyed nervously with the butt of one of her pistols. Steve nodded at him, and Bruce glanced to Clint for confirmation before plunging forward. The archer's bow was back in his hands. He shifted his position so he had ready access to his quiver.

"Tony," Bruce said calmly. He waited until the engineer looked up before continuing. "There's something you need to know. The Other Guy. He's, uh, not in here with me."

"Of course he's not, otherwise you wouldn't be wearing my-" Tony froze mid-quip. His soft eyes widened with shock. "What? You mean he didn't- Oh. Oh."

He put a hand to Bruce's graying head and winced. Bruce instantly recognized the symptoms and muttered a curse. So much for this not ending badly. Perhaps he shouldn't have said anything at all. "Run," he shot over his shoulder at Clint, Steve, and Natasha. "Get as far from us as you can."

"Is that him?" Tony asked with forced calmness. His face had gone very white and there was a flicker of fear in his eyes.

Bruce swallowed hard. He had hoped Tony would be spared this. "Yes, that's him," he confirmed, forcing his voice to remain even. He still might be able to talk Tony through the process of resisting the transformation. "He's going to try to push you aside. Tony, you need to focus on keeping yourself in front. Focus on breathing first, then focus on pushing back."

"It-ahh," Tony grimaced. He squeezed his temples in a weirdly familiar gesture. "He's…stronger than I thought."

Bruce risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Nobody behind him had moved. "Get out of here!" he yelled at them. Finally, Natasha grabbed Clint's arm and started dragging him away.

Steve hesitated. "But we can't just leave you-"

"Go, Steve!" Bruce snapped, not taking his eyes from Tony. The soldier always picked the worst moments to try to be noble. "Trust me on this!"

Steve took off after Clint and Natasha. Tony fell to his knees with a loud groan, clutching his head, and Bruce couldn't worry about them any longer. Bruce dropped to the ground with him and grabbed at his wrists. He tugged them away from Tony's face. He had to be careful not to accidently crush his own bones with the gauntlets. Bruce shuddered at the thought.

"Tony. Tony! Look at me!" he said loudly. Stark looked up and god it was weird to be looking into his own dark eyes. Even without JARVIS' help, the physicist could see Tony was starting to hyperventilate. "You can still stop it, Tony. You are stronger than he is! Push him back!"

"Aaah," Tony moaned. His body convulsed in Bruce's grasp. Tony curled in on himself. His hands balled involuntarily into fists. Bruce adjusted his grip, struggling to keep him upright. "Never said how…much this…hurts."

"I know," Bruce told him grimly. "Keep your focus. You are in control. Don't let him push you aside."

Bruce knew it was a lost cause even as he tried to encourage his friend. His muscles were beginning to quiver and swell; the familiar green tinge spread over his skin. Even Bruce, with all his practice, would have had a difficult time stopping the transformation now. Tony was at the point of no return. He was going to transform and there was nothing Bruce could do about it.

"Can't. Can't hold…" he gasped at Bruce. His eyes squeezed shut again with pain. "Did…they…?"

Bruce suddenly realized he was asking about the others. Tony had been trying to hold it together long enough for them to get away. The scientist couldn't turn his head very far in the armor, so he had to rotate his entire torso to look over his shoulder. Steve had stopped nearby (idiot! Bruce thought angrily); Clint and Natasha were still running.

"Yes, Tony, they're clear." Bruce released his wrists so he wouldn't accidently injure his friend and began to back away. "It's going to be okay," he said desperately. He felt like he was babbling but he didn't know what else to do. "Tony, it's going to be okay. Just…let him out now. You'll be okay."

Tony had time to shoot him one last desperate look before he sagged to the ground and let the monster out.

Please review! I love hearing from you guys, and I try to write back. :)