General Warnings: Child abuse, torture/experimentation, fantasy violence/gore, potential and probable slash in later chapters.
Chapter Specific Warnings: Abduction, Fantasy violence, child abuse, reference to torture/experimentation, implied child sexual abuse.
A/N: I have to apologise because this chapter is going to divert from the original plot. Why? Because reading over the chapter I'm wondering what the actual f # I was on while writing that whole load of bull about the Avengers using lethal force on Harry in that situation. With him being younger it makes less sense! So apologies to those who like the original series, but I hope this makes more sense. As for my explanation of magic in this chapter: utter bull that probably makes no sense whatsoever that I'm just making up as I write it because... Reasons?
Chapter Three: What The Hell Is A Hulk?
The Hulk wasn't exactly fond of the Metal Man and his puny friends. But he was confused by the little wizard that had almost hurt him. For once, the Hulk was feeling an emotion other than anger.
Curiosity.
The wizard had been damaged, badly, and had attacked out of fear and had actually thrown him. That didn't happen to the Hulk. Hulk was too strong for that.
But the Hulk understood something nobody, even puny Banner, didn't fully understand. And that was how magic worked.
It was, in essence, a mutation, not one caused however by the X gene or basic radiation. Their bodies had adapted to be able to store and use raw energy around them, specifically quantum energy, and redirect it to do something entirely implausible, anything their mind could conjure up. This was believed to be a reaction of gamma radiation flares, thus how it appeared in different cultures and developed seperate cultures of sorts.
It wasn't until very recent years, say the last thousand or so years, that wands had been in use, made to aid in the focus of spellcasting. Then, incantations became popular and eventually just took over, the words holding no real other than the belief of them.
But, with the gamma radiation connection, the Hulk, oddly, was able to track the unique scent of a wizard's magic.
Harry, for example, was exceptionally powerful and his power had only been boosted as of recent. His magic smelled of raw untapped power and leaked like a waterbottle with the cap only half on, it had a pure and sweet smell, wild and untamed.
It was that scent, the sweet and wild smell of magic, that had the Hulk running to find the boy before the Avengers found him leaping into the air with vigor. His destination?
New York City.
The streets were too crowded for Hulk to remain as Hulk. It seemed he was actually self-aware. He was big, scary. He smashed. Little wizard would be too scared. Puny humans of city would be scared too.
Fortunately, when he crashed into the street, he shifted back into Banner as he went unconscious. The Hulk could only hope puny Banner would find the little wizard.
Harry remained curled up in a backstreet for far longer than he should have. It was cold and he was shivering, but he almost couldn't bring himself to care. He wanted to go home... Wherever that was, and he had no clue how to.
His injuries burned whenever he moved. He knew he had to find a hospital soon, but he didn't even know if this was an English speaking country and of course his realities never bothered to teach him other languages.
But he needed to move. He needed water, food, essentials like that. Maybe he could find the nearest division of the wizarding world, but he had no clue where to look, let alone what.
It wasn't until he heard shouting coming down his alley that he got the courage to pull himself up and face whatever was coming, not noticing his rather convient change of clothes.
"Hold him down!" The largest of these new arrivals yelled as Harry came forwards, not yet seen.
Two boys, perhaps a little bit older than Harry and an odd callback to a trio of boys he was sure he knew, obeyed quickly, grabbing the smallest of the four, a young boy more roughly Harry's age, and pinning him to the wall.
"Poor, puny Parker," The largest boy smirked, drawing his hand back to hit the boy. He swung and -
Harry rugby tackled him.
It was something he had learned from watching Dudley and more often from being on the receiving end of it. Pushing the bully to the ground however felt very good, even when he was pushed off and landed painfully on his back.
He got to his feet quickly enough, practiced from the years of torment at the Dursleys and no longer burdened by glasses and horrible eyesight.
He could hear the pinned boy laughing behind him and turned to the two holding him.
"Let him go." Harry ordered in his best impersonation of Hermione's no-nonsense tone.
"And why should we do that?" The boy he had tackled had gotten back to his feet and grabbed Harry's arm. He spun him around roughly.
Harry raised an eyebrow, adopting his usual Gryffindor bravado as he took a little more inspiration from his bookish best friend and punched the bully straight in the nose.
He was immediately released and stood strong, rubbing his hand slightly. That was idiotic - his thumb felt broken. He really did need to learn how to throw a good punch. The boy he had punched stumbled back in pain, gripping his bleeding nose.
"Oh, that looks painful. You might want to get to the hospital," Harry cooed with an expression of fake sympathy.
"You'll pay for that! I'll make you pay!" The boy snapped, motioning for his buddies to release the pinned kid before half running off.
Harry was really getting flashbacks of Hermione punching Draco. He looked to the kid that was now scrambling to find his glasses, quickly taking pity and picking them up, offering them to him.
"Are you alright?" He asked, helping the boy up.
"Are you kidding? That was awesome!" He said excitedly, jumping up and down a little in excitement. "I'm Peter by the way. I've never seen anybody stick up to Flash like that!"
"I'm Harry," He laughed a little at the kid's excitement. "Wait, did you say his name is... Flash? Like, his actual name is Flash?" Harry stifled a laugh. "He sure ran like a flash after I hit him." He chuckled, rubbing his hand again subconsciously, not really noticing the pain at all.
Peter laughed. "I like you." He declared. "His real name is Eugene, Flash is his nickname because he's on the football team."
"Eugene? No wonder he wanted to go by Flash." Harry snorted.
His mind then made the connection of Peter Parker being his new friend's full name. Apparently his parents had liked alliteration. They had some pretty weird names around here.
Peter had noticed Harry's rubbing of his hand and was looking closely at his hand.
"Are you okay? Your thumb looks weird." He commented.
"I'll be fine." Harry dismissed a little too quickly.
"You look kind of pale too. That's not good." He frowned. "Come on, my aunt's quite good with this sort of thing. She'll fix you up."
"That's really unnecessary..."
"Nonsense! You saved me from Flash and his goons. It's the least I can do." Peter insisted, grabbing onto Harry's arm and pulling him along insistantly.
"What were you doing down that alley anyway?" Peter asked.
"It's kind of a long story..."
"It's a long walk."
Harry almost rolled his eyes at the cliche statement but huffed as his new friend peered at him, guessing he wouldn't be left alone until he answered.
"Well," he began.
"You fought off the Avengers?" Peter asked incredulously.
"Not exactly..." Harry said awkwardly. "I more... Ran away from them."
"You were in a HYDRA base! Somebody abducted you and took you to a HYDRA base! That's so awesome!" A pause as Harry gave Peter the look. "Oh, I mean not awesome. Totally not awesome. Really uncool of that dude."
Harry laughed.
As they continued walking, Peter revealed to him who exactly the Avengers were as well as introducing him to his own alter ego, the Spider-Man... After a long winded and very exasperated explanation of what YouTube was.
"Wait, so do I need a fake name too? Like Flash or the Spider-Man from YouTube?" Was Harry's first question.
"Flash- Flash is nowhere near as cool as the Spider-Man! Just the Spider-Man, by the way, the YouTube bit is unnecessary." Came the irritated reply.
They continued to bicker until they reached Peter's appartement. He was living with his aunt, and Harry could already feel the sweat collecting at the back of his neck.
What if she was like Aunt Petunia? What if she hated him and got angry at Peter and kicked him out? What if she hurt him? Or sold him back to HYDRA? Or called him names? Or - or -
Peter opened the door...
A/N: This is so short, ugh. I've really bad block at the moment, so sorry about the slow and short update. Hopefully I'll get some ideas soon and get this up and running smoothly.
Review responses:
candinaru25: Bless, Harry is still confused and will probably be for a while, but now he has a friend he didn't have in the original.
Victoria (Guest): Thanks so much! Updates are on the way, its all on my to do list.
ClaireR89: Mate (if you don't mind me calling you that) please tell me when you figure it out, I want to make these the best they can possibly be.
All reviewers that haven't been addressed here: Thank you so much for reviewing! It really means the world to me and has kept me writing when I'm able to.