Warnings: language, some not-very-graphic references to dismemberment.
Many thanks to my beta-buddy/Bruce Banner Fangirl Friend, irite, for beta-buddying and Bruce Banner Fangirling.
I do not own The Avengers.
The GMSS had rendered Bruce largely incapable of masking his feelings (which wasn't a problem for him, most of the time, because until recently he hadn't felt anything, and even now he didn't feel much), so the doubt on his face at Tony's assertion that withdrawal wouldn't be an issue was apparent. Clear as day, in fact.
"Look, I can diagram it out if you want," Tony reassured him. "Draw the molecules. Hell, you can do it yourself if that'll make you feel better. But withdrawal? Not gonna be a problem."
And Bruce wound his way through a convoluted train of logic (You can't trust your judgment. Your judgment says 'don't trust him.' So you should trust him) before nodding slowly. "Okay."
"Okay? Okay, let's do this, you mean?"
"Yeah."
Tony clapped his hands together. "Fucking right, let's do this. Okay. So, unless SHIELD's completely fucking stupid, which I have my doubts about, they're going to do hair testing, so we need to keep you on this new shit all the time and not just before you go in for the tests. Um...I need to make more. Set up some kind of mass-production thing..." He continued to mutter to himself, jotting notes down on his tablet for a moment.
Bruce looked on in silence, idly rubbing at the buckle on the bracelet, his new nervous habit.
"All right," Tony stated definitively, setting his tablet down. "That should be easy enough to implement. Now, I've got enough here for about three days...do you want to do animal testing first?" Tony didn't think it was necessary—he wasn't always the best about following protocol—but he thought Bruce would probably appreciate the option.
There were several beats of silence before Bruce replied, "I...yeah. If it's not a problem."
It wasn't a problem, but it was annoying. Tony did not express this, though, too pleased that Bruce was both participating in the process and expressing a want. "Sure. Fine. We can use the mice from next door. If something goes wrong, Hulk-mice probably won't be much of an issue."
Bruce did not look amused at the idea of Hulk-mice, and so Tony quickly deflected, "So, er, let's get started on that."
They (well, really, Tony did because Bruce's attention span was still shot to hell) set up their experiment, calculated mouse-appropriate dosages, designated a control group, and took all of the pretreatment readings. Tony administered the first dose and then they settled in to watch.
Nothing happened.
"Well, that's a good sign," Tony observed. "Considering 'nothing' is exactly what we want to happen."
Bruce stood next to him in silence, gazing intently at the treated mice.
They watched the mice for forty-five minutes, until Tony declared, "This is boring as hell, Banner. Let's grab some lunch."
Bruce shook his head. "No, I'm good here."
And Tony hesitated for a minute before he replied, "If you're sure." Trust goes both ways. I guess."I'll be back in a few hours, have JARVIS let me know if anything happens." He turned and slipped from the lab, leaving Bruce to monitor the mice.
For almost four hours, he did not move from his spot next to their cages.
Animal testing lasted for a week, which Bruce knew was trying Tony's patience. Especially after the mice showed absolutely no response to the compound after two days.
But Bruce would not agree to move forward until he was sure that nothing bad was going to happen, and Tony couldn't dismiss his reluctance as irrational paranoia (despite his best efforts), so it wasn't until a week later that Bruce finally (slowly, laboriously) did the statistical analysis and declared, "There is no significant difference between the treated and nontreated groups in any of the measurements we took."
"Bullshit," Tony said, peering over his shoulder at the computer monitor. "There's no difference in any of them at all."
Bruce shrugged.
In the week since the start of their 'clinical trial,' Tony had managed to manufacture enough of his new compound (which he had maturely named "Fuck You SHIELD" or "FYS" for short) to last for the next six months. With some additional work, Tony (with ample input from Bruce—who seemed to focus better with a clear goal in mind) had managed to get it into a form that could be delivered transdermally through the same bracelet, and they'd calculated the appropriate dosage. Everything was one hundred percent ready to go.
Except for Bruce. But looking at the statistics readouts in front of him, even his rock-solid commitment to not committing wavered.
"I think," he said slowly, "that we can move forward." And part of him was still screaming about long-term effects, about potential toxicity, about a thousand other things that could go wrong, cause an issue, cause an 'incident.' But he knew that nothing would ever quiet those doubts, knew that they could test this stuff for the next ten years and he'd still worry. He had come to accept that, as a whole, his worries were (probably) irrational and, because of that, nothing could ever silence them.
Tony looked just a little bit surprised by Bruce's assertion. "You sure?"
"No." Then, more thoughtfully, "I'm never going to be."
And the 'surprise' morphed into 'uncertainty.' "Look, if you don't want to do this—"
One corner of Bruce's mouth turned up in a wry half-smile. "I appreciate your efforts to, um, not force this on me." It was true—Tony had been (by Tony's standards, at least) amazingly understanding of Bruce's reservations. "But if we wait for me to be ready, it's never going to happen."
"Do you want this to happen?" The most important question, the crucial one, really, and one that Bruce (after three weeks of thinking about it...three agonizing weeks) finally had an answer to.
"Yes."
Tony nodded, surprised by Bruce's resolute certainty. "Okay. Then hand me that bracelet, yeah?"
Bruce undid the buckle on the bracelet and pulled it off, marveling momentarily at how light his arm felt without it (psychological response to stimulus, Banner, it's not really lighter). When he reached out to hand it to Tony, the billionaire noticed the small, pink, dry patch of skin on the inside of Bruce's wrist. "What the fuck's that?"
"What?"
"This," Tony answered, grabbing Bruce's arm and pointing at his wrist.
"Oh." Bruce had largely ceased to notice the pain from where the GMSS contacted his skin, but now that it was gone he couldn't help but notice the relief (and damn, but does that feel better—definitely not psychological). "Um, that stuff's...pretty irritating."
"Yeah, no shit. Does it hurt?"
"It...did. Not so much, anymore. At least, I don't really notice..."
Tony shook his head, popping the GMSS cartridge out of the bracelet. "Christ. You never said anything."
"I...really didn't notice it after the first couple of weeks, Tony."
"Weeks. Weeks?" Tony snapped the FYS cartridge into the bracelet before pushing it roughly across the table towards Bruce. "You know what? I'm just gonna add that to the list of reasons to blow the shit out of SHIELD and then drop the subject, 'kay?"
Bruce nodded, (amazed that Tony would drop anything, ever) and slowly fastened the bracelet back around his wrist. When he was finished, he looked at it, waiting. He didn't know for what, exactly, but the moment felt too...climactic for there to be no response.
But nothing happened.
He looked up at Tony, who asked, "How's it feel?"
In a word, good. The burning pain at the contact site that he'd come to accept as his constant companion was gone, throwing into sharp contrast how much it had hurt before. Bruce flexed his wrist. "It feels...fine."
Tony rolled his eyes. "You and I have very different definitions of 'fine.' Try again."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "It's...fine. Really. No pain."
"Any other side effects?"
"It's been less than a minute."
Tony just looked at him expectantly, and Bruce suddenly realized that Tony had a hell of a lot riding on this, too. Had put a hell of a lot into this, was risking his own freedom (And safety, Bruce's mind added insidiously). And Bruce knew that Tony was as keenly interested in the results of this experiment as he, the test subject, was. "Thank you," Bruce blurted out suddenly, unable to tell if he or Tony was more surprised. "I...you didn't have to do this. I just... I can't figure out why you're doing all of this for me, why you would take this kind of risk for me...it just doesn't seem worth it."
After a couple beats of silence, Tony looked at Bruce and sighed, shaking his head.
Bruce didn't know what he'd said wrong.
They'd completed the switch at 7:00 PM, and Bruce decided to call it a (really) early night, thinking that it might be better to sleep through the detox process.
While he slept, Tony had intended to clean up the lab so he could turn it back over to the chemists he'd displaced almost a month ago. He tried to remember what inane project he'd sent them to work on with the biologists, but he couldn't. That would be an interesting report, at least.
Tony hadn't gotten very far into his cleanup before his phone had gone off at 8:15, alerting him that SHIELD had altered two of the ex-detainee files. He headed to his own lab and settled in to peruse the changes.
Another detainee had been marked 'MISSING,' and one had been marked 'DECEASED.'
Tony read through the altered files. Both of the detainees had been mutants. The one who'd been murdered seemed like he'd been a nice enough guy, just horribly unlucky. His mutation had somehow caused him to (under a very specific set of circumstances) deconstruct objects at the molecular level by touching them. An unfortunate accident when it happened to an object...a horrible tragedy when it happened to a human. SHIELD had taken him into custody after they'd figured out what had happened to the man's wife. Tony could tell it was an accident, though, just through skimming their incident report.
The other guy was a teleporter with a very long list of felony accusations (but no convictions), ranging from bank robbery to espionage to murder. SHIELD had, through careful adherence to protocol (meaning drugging him and cramming him into a tiny, lead-lined room), been the only organization capable of holding on to him. But their protocol had been called into question, and the guy had never gotten a trial before his imprisonment, so SHIELD had to release him with all the others.
Tony shook his head, and he was just closing out the files when he got another alert.
Really? Busy day over there, I guess.
Tony opened the newest alert and immediately felt his stomach drop. It was another 'DECEASED.' But it wasn't one of the ex-detainees.
It was Dr. Catherine Locklear.
Tony opened her file and quickly read through the notes. She had apparently left work two nights ago at 5:30 PM, and had not come in to work the next morning. Hadn't called in, hadn't given any indication of where she might have gone. And then the janitor had found her bits and pieces artfully arranged around her office at 6:00 PM tonight, with no indication of forced entry into the office and no one on the security footage of the hallway outside.
The connection between that and what Tony had just read a few minutes ago was so obvious that Tony almost choked. He wondered if SHIELD had caught it, or if they were so fucking oblivious that something even this blatant just flew by them.
Well, maybe he was jumping to conclusions. It would be easy enough to check. Tony quickly accessed Locklear's patient records, cross matching it with the missing detainees. Where five of her twelve recently released patients had been missing two weeks ago, now it was up to six.
The sixth, of course, was the teleporter. Locklear had been treating him for 'sociopathy,' which Tony found strangely...ironic.
Guess that didn't really stick.
Not surprising, really, given their methods.
Tony leaned back in his chair, tapping his chin thoughtfully. He could feel a theory brewing just below the surface. It felt like he was missing something, something obvious, almost as obvious as the connection between Locklear's death and the teleporter falling off the grid.
But nothing would come to him, and after several more moments he gave a frustrated sigh. It would come, or it wouldn't, and forcing it wasn't going to help anything. But a few more pairs of eyes might be able to help.
"JARVIS, could you please send anyone available down here?"
"Certainly, sir. Shall I wake Dr. Banner?"
"No, let him sleep. Poor guy needs it."
"Of course. Mr. Barton and Ms. Romanoff are en route, sir."
"Steve and Thor?"
"Currently on a mission, sir."
"Hmm." Tony was sure they'd told him they were going, but he wasn't very good at listening when it came to boring things like schedules. "Where did they go—nah, doesn't matter. When will they be back?"
"They are scheduled to return at 11:30 AM tomorrow. Shall I advise them to expedite their return, sir?"
"Yeah, the sooner I run this by everyone the better. Thanks, JARVIS. You're the best."
"Only because you are, sir."
"Do you really need your AI to stroke your ego, Stark?" Clint asked, striding into the lab. Natasha was right behind him.
"I don't need it, Barton, but I can't deny that I like it," Tony replied. "But we're not here to talk about my ego. Believe it or not. There's some serious shit going down."
Clint sobered immediately. Natasha asked, "What's going on?"
Tony filled them in on what he'd figured out so far.
"So, murderous mutant," Natasha mused. "Not the first time it's happened. Hell, I'd say that bitch had it coming."
Tony smirked. "Yeah, I'm kinda feeling the same way, and if that's all this was, I'd say fuck it. But I think there's something else going on here."
"Like what?" Clint asked.
"Not sure yet, Legolas," Tony ground out. "It's like it's looking me right in the damn face and I just can't see it. Is this how normal people feel?"
Clint and Natasha shot him matching dirty looks. Before they could give voice to any of the undoubtedly charming thoughts they were having, Tony continued, "I mean, look, we have one dead and one missing. Why? There's way more missing than dead. Why were the ones that were killed...killed?"
Natasha made a small, thoughtful noise. "You said the one who died, he was a criminal?"
"No, other way around. The guy who was killed was pretty clean. As far as I could tell, he killed one person and it was an accident. Why?"
Natasha didn't answer him, instead asking, "Could you pull up all the files for the ones who are missing, and a list of the murder victims they've managed to ID?"
Tony did as he was asked. After half a dozen files, the connection was so obvious that he could have slapped his forehead. "I'm an idiot."
"These are all criminals," Clint observed, indicating the 'missing-but-not-killed' files. "And these," he indicated the murder victims, "Were all more-or-less decent people. Victims of circumstance."
"What are you saying? What's this even mean?" Natasha asked, though it was clear she was making a connection. Clint shrugged, similarly unwilling to theorize without more evidence.
Tony, though, was always willing to see a conspiracy, and he had a theory. "All the good guys are dying. The bad guys are missing. SHIELD personnel are being killed. Seems pretty damn obvious to me." Seeing that neither of the assassins agreed, he added, "Come on. Is it so hard to believe that all these criminals would be pissed off enough at SHIELD to band together? Get their revenge? They can't convince the fundamentally decent people to join up, so they're being eliminated so they can't tattle..."
Natasha and Clint looked skeptical still. "Seems like kind of a reach," Clint said. "Just because they're all criminals doesn't mean they're all involved in some anti-government conspiracy...I mean, they'd need a leader. Organization. How would they be able to pull something like this off?"
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Barton. Haven't you learned anything in the last year? If something seems like it's too fucked up to happen, it probably will. Hell, it probably already has. And SHIELD was too fucking stupid to realize it."
"He's got a point," Natasha agreed.
Clint shrugged. "Okay, sure. Whatever. But if all that's true, then, what do we do about it? Hardly seems like our problem. Seems like SHIELD made their bed; they can lie in it. Cause and fucking effect."
"Normally, I'd agree with you. But if they're recruiting from the ex-detainees, then they're going to come for Bruce. And Bruce is going to say no."
Tony paused for breath, and added, "And that is going to get very ugly for everyone involved. Including us."
"Well, what do you propose, then?" Natasha was always practical.
"Honestly, Romanoff? I don't have a clue."
Bruce woke up lying in a sunbeam, and that wasn't different.
He opened his eyes, then quickly shut them again against the painfully bright light splashing across his bed. God, it was just unreal how much light there was. Screw the sun for being so aggravatingly bright...
With a low groan, Bruce rolled over before slowly pulling himself into a sitting position, immediately and instinctually compensating for the wave of dizziness that accompanied this movement every morning.
But there was no wave of dizziness. No heavy headedness. No faint nausea, no sensation of the world spinning slowly around him.
Nothing. Just him, coming into awareness in an overstimulating world full of sharp edges and corners.
Bruce opened his eyes, slowly, cautiously. He looked down at his wrist. The bracelet was still there, wrapped around his arm, but the burning pain of the GMSS contacting his skin was gone.
As was the haze in his mind, the gauzy veil from behind which he'd been viewing the world for the last 10 months. The soft padding around him, cushioning the him from the impact of the world on his senses.
That was all gone. And now he felt...
Raw. Exposed. Like the combined stimulus from his quiet bedroom was going to take his skin clear off. This wasn't withdrawal, he knew; this was just him trying to process the world after a 10-month vacation.
He groaned again, flopping back down, covering his head with his blankets.
"Dr. Banner," JARVIS spoke, and Bruce wondered if Tony's AI had always been this loud, "Mr. Stark would like to have a word with you at your earliest convenience."
Bruce didn't reply, and JARVIS repeated his message.
Still, Bruce ignored the AI, so JARVIS inquired, "Dr. Banner? Mr. Stark—"
The flash of annoyance was bright and hot and entirely unexpected. "Tell Mr. Stark he can fucking wait," Bruce growled, surprising even himself with his choice of language.
"Certainly, sir, shall I relay that message verbatim, or shall I paraphrase?"
Bruce responded by putting his pillow over his head.
In the dark and quiet, he calmed abruptly and was left with a sick sense of horror at his behavior. The GMSS wasn't even completely out of his system, he'd been conscious for less than five minutes, and he was already losing it. Feeling annoyed. And annoyance leads to anger, which leads to...
You weren't going there, though. You yelled, and then you stopped. Like a...normal person.
And, well, that was true. He had been annoyed, had yelled something vulgar, and hadn't experienced the faintest bit of feedback from the Other Guy...
But it's just a matter of time until you do. Because Bruce knew he was anything but 'normal.'
Bruce heard his door open, and then Tony's voice. "Good God, Banner, I could hear your irrational worrying from 500 feet away. Aren't you going to get up and face this beautiful morning?"
Maybe if I pretend I've died, he'll go away.
"I'm not leaving 'til you get up. I need to make sure you're not having weird side effects. Like, a rash. Or hives. Or sudden and irrepressible rage. And then we need to talk. Steve and Thor just got back, so I can fill them in too."
Bruce flung his pillow across the room in the general direction of Tony's voice. He missed entirely. This left him with no other options, so with an irritated huff, Bruce rolled out of bed and stood.
No dizziness at all.
He hadn't realized how debilitating it had been until it was gone.
Tony was watching him closely, he knew, and Bruce figured that was probably a good thing. Vigilance never went amiss when Bruce was around. "Look," he said, "No rash. No hives. And no...irrepressible...rage."
Tony cocked his head to one side. "How do you feel? And don't say 'fine,' you know I feel about that word."
Bruce took a deep breath and let it out. Well, he figured he'd better be honest, since the safety of everyone in the Tower, plus Manhattan, plus probably the rest of the state (the list could go on, added a distinctly cold female voice), was at stake here. "I feel...annoyed. Irritated. Everything's too bright. Loud. Obnoxious. You. Are obnoxious. But uh, the dizziness is gone. The nausea. I'm starving."
Tony nodded, as if none of this was surprising at all. "Any withdrawal symptoms?"
"You said that wouldn't be a problem."
"And it won't be. But just answer the question."
"No. But it's still too early to tell. Give it another twelve hours." Bruce was able to remember this, to make the leap from one train of thought to another with little effort and in a matter of milliseconds. It felt good to have his brain back, to think again, if nothing else.
Bruce's short, curt tone was not lost on Tony. "Geez, you really are touchy, aren't you."
After another deep breath, Bruce said, "Yeah. I am. I think this is too dangerous, Tony, I can't—
"Fuck that." Then, quieter, "Damn."
"What?"
Tony met Bruce's eyes. "I was kinda hoping that the whole delusional self-loathing thing was related to the drug and not um, you know."
"I don't, actually. And I'm not delusional."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Um, yeah. You are. Sorry, Banner."
"Wow."
"Yeah, well, I wasn't going to say anything until I knew if I was listening to you or the drug."
"That's kinda harsh, don't you think?"
"It's kinda true."
Bruce's narrowed his eyes. "Were you this annoying three weeks ago? Last night?"
And suddenly, Tony smiled. No, he beamed. "Yeah, I was. But you didn't notice."
"Well, now I've noticed."
Tony's smile only grew.
"I fail to see how this is a good thing, Tony." Since undue irritation was definitely on his list of things to actively avoid.
"You're annoyed. And that was so easy to do. Oh, and you're not big and green. I'd say it's a threefold victory."
"What?"
"Um, you felt something. After a normal amount of stimulus. And you're not smashing anyone. That's all normal. Those are normal things, Bruce. We should celebrate. Do you want ice cream?"
And, well, to hell with it. He did. "I need to shower first."
"Fine. We'll be in the kitchen."
Bruce joined them in the kitchen half an hour later, where Tony coerced Thor into serving up bowls of ice cream ("Would it not be better to have something more hearty for the first meal of the day, Stark?" "Naw, put those muscles to work, Point Break, this shit's rock solid.")
"Hey, heard yesterday was the big day," Clint greeted the physicist as he made his way into the room. "How do you feel?"
"Shitty and irritable," Tony answered for him, shoving a heaping bowl of Neapolitan towards Bruce. "But he hasn't killed anyone yet, so we're celebrating."
"Tony," Steve chastised him, "That's not...a nice thing to say." Sometimes, the blunt way the billionaire addressed problems still stunned him, even though it probably shouldn't have.
"Eh, he knows I'm kidding, right, Brucie?"
"Call me Brucie one more time and I might forget you're kidding, Tony." Bruce punctuated his sentence with a grimace, the added stimulus of the kitchen grating on his nerves.
Tony waved his hand dismissively. "He's fine. Almost all normal and shit." Clearly, Tony was delighted by this. "What're your plans for today, Brucie? 'Cause I—no, we—are going to need blood samples. And any other body fluids you feel like donating."
Bruce froze at Tony's latest 'Brucie' before narrowing his eyes.
"Maybe you should lay off, Stark," Natasha suggested.
Thor agreed, "Dr. Banner is still adjusting, perhaps a more delicate touch would not go amiss."
Tony repeated his dismissive hand wave. "Really, he's fine."
"I know that," Natasha said, "And you know that, but do you think he knows that?"
And, looking at Bruce, Tony saw how stiff his posture was, how rigidly he'd set his shoulders. He remembered the 'irrational worry' and the 'delusional self-loathing.' Those issues that removing the GMSS had not alleviated. "Shit. Fuck, I'm sorry. I just got...overzealous, I guess."
Bruce didn't move for several more seconds. Then, he let out a long breath. "Yeah. Whatever. Just...can we not provoke me today?"
"Yeah." Then, Tony remembered what he'd called this little meeting about. "Except, um, I need to provoke you one more time."
Bruce sighed heavily. "Why am I not surprised? What's up?"
Tony wasn't quite sure where to start. He wanted to start with the least disturbing news, but couldn't decide if that would be 'you might be approached to join some kind of supervillain crime syndicate that'll try to kill you if you say no' or if it would be 'the woman who oversaw your psychological torture for nine months was killed and then chopped into pieces and used as decorations.'
Well, one kind of led to the other, really. "Dr. Catherine Locklear is dead."
Bruce, who had been tucking into his ice cream, swallowed before looking up and meeting Tony's gaze. "She is? How?" His tone was flat, empty, and it was entirely evident that he was doing his best to not react.
Given that, Tony wasn't sure if he should answer. But it seemed like it'd be awkward if he didn't. "Um...massive blood loss. She was...attacked." Tony felt that the whole 'chopped into pieces and scattered around her office' thing might be a bit...unnecessarily graphic.
Bruce took the news pretty well. He didn't jump up and down and cheer (which Tony hadn't expected, but would have loved to see), but he didn't become distressed, either. He just took a few deep breaths and asked in that same flat tone, "By whom?"
"SHIELD doesn't know. But I think I do." And Tony explained about the teleportation-capable mutant, which led him to his theory about the missing ex-detainees.
When Tony was finished, Bruce asked, "So, you think they're going to come looking for me?"
Tony nodded. "It seems likely."
"And if I say no...they're going to try to kill me?"
"That seems to be their style, yeah."
"That's not going to go very well for them." Bruce paused, and added, "For anyone. Do you think it would be better if I was on—"
"No. No way," Tony interrupted. "Don't even suggest it. If this shit actually happens, we will all deal with it, and not by drugging you. Are you just looking for an excuse to get back on that shit?"
"No, Tony, but I'm not going to let anyone get hurt because I'm a monster."
Disbelieving, Tony said, "Let me get this straight: someone might try to kill you, and that's the only thing you're worried about? Hurting someone else inadvertently?"
The look Bruce gave him clearly said, 'What else would I be worried about?'
Turns out, real life stuff + terrible insomnia leads to a complete loss of productivity and creativity. Writing's been going terribly this week (can you say, 'slow as hell?'), but I finally got up the energy to post. And to write a haiku.
Winter winds have come,
the writer is left battered;
Please leave a review.
