7: I'm Not Always Just Me

As soon as the car's window was up, Tony gave Bruce an annoyed look. "Really, you told her about Mrs. G.?"

Bruce had just taken a bite of bagel, so he chewed and washed it down with coffee before he replied. "I didn't know it was a secret, and, besides, I think it made Natasha feel a little better about this flying circus. At least we have a competent ringmaster now." Tony cleared his throat again. "Not that you didn't have a handle on things, but Mal sees the big and the small pictures better than both of us."

"Okay, point taken. Well, it will be nice to work with her again."

"The other big plus is this will keep Natasha from feeling like she ought to be there and going all rogue operative on someone."

"Please," said Tony, "there is no way of stopping that."

"Well, I think this morning she'll be busy enough. Did Pepper tell you what I texted her about?"

"No, what are you texting my girl, Banner?"

"It was kind of weird this morning. While we were getting ready, Natasha threw up. Nothing serious that I could tell, and she was immediately over it, but she insists it wasn't food poisoning. I don't know. I've never seen her physically ill before."

Tony gave him a quizzical sideways look, "Uh, Bruce, has Papa Clint had that talk with you yet, the one with the birds and the bees and the care and treatment of pretty little spiders?"

"I know. That was the first or second thing to pop into my mind, too. However," Bruce held up his bagel to silence Tony, "even if by some two-hundred-million-to-one odds that a miracle has happened and both of us had a fertile moment, the timing is wrong. She may be late with her 'little friend's visit', but morning sickness shouldn't happen for another month."

"You had time to Google that?"

"No," he said with some sadness creeping into his voice, "I just remember when it happened before, a long time ago." Bruce shoved some more bagel in his mouth and chewed slowly.

"So," Tony said after a few minutes, "that leaves what? Stress. Over exercising. Side effects from certain medications? Alcohol? Something more serious internally?"

Bruce swallowed and took another drink of coffee. "That's where texting Pepper comes in. I made Natasha promise to go get this checked out, but unless a bone is broken or there is a major amount of pain or blood, the odds of getting her to see a doctor aren't favorable. She'd rather have me work on her than one of the medics at the Avengers Complex. She doesn't even have a primary care person here in the city."

"Okay, now I got it. You have unleashed the Pepper upon her." Tony found this highly amusing. "Banner, you are devious and underhanded and you play dirty. Underneath that goofy, huggable brilliance I so love beats the heart of a true Machiavellian. I solute you, sir!" He offered Bruce a fist bump, which the physicist hesitantly returned. Under his breath Tony said, "Bruce, you are gonna last maybe two seconds when we get back on Sunday."

"Thanks," said Bruce, and he finished his bagel and coffee, which was a good thing because Tony was having fun maneuvering through early traffic and around corners to get out of the city and over to his private landing strip in New Jersey.

"So, you said the odds are two hundred million to one, but that can't be right. We both know it would be lower than that."

"Right, that was hyperbole of course, but it's still not close to likely," Bruce replied.

"Au contraire, let's think about the possibilities and the math."

Bruce was not at all sure he liked the direction Tony had veered with the conversation, but he was game to play along. "Okay," he began, "we both know Natasha was sterilized after her completion of the Red Room Program when she was barely a young adult in her, what, middle teens? I would guess they clamped or tied off her fallopian tubes rather than removed any organs because 1) she has two small scars that would coincide with having endoscopic surgery and 2) her cycles are present and otherwise quite normal as is the rest of her as far as I can tell."

"So, what is the failure rate?" Tony asked.

"Failure rate? If the surgery is done correctly, it would be zero."

"There's the rub, 'if it's done correctly' is the important part. You're assuming the snipping and tying and/or clamping or plugging was done correctly in the first place AND, even if it was done right, it's something that is going to stay that way for a decade or more."

Bruce already had his glasses on and his phone out pulling up information. There it was in a nice, neat chart. "Crap, you may have a point," he murmured. It wasn't a large percentage, but there were sterilization failures and the statistics, especially for the methods blocking and clamping the tubes, went up over time. In one study they nearly went into the double digits. He compared the information on the Centers for Disease Control's website with Planned Parenthood's and a British academic page and an Australian study. Shit. Shit. Shit. Bruce put his phone in his jacket pocket, took off his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. How could he have had such tunnel vision? No kidding. Oh, shit. Banner, you are an idiot. If he'd overlooked this, what else had he missed? His mind was starting to reel, which led him back to the other side of this equation. "I need to get tested."

"You need to what? … Oh!" Tony took a quick look at Bruce. He wasn't so much green as pale. "Are you okay? Do I need to pull over? Puked up cream cheese is way worse than the sesame seeds you're getting everywhere."

"Not unless you see a walk-in fertility counseling clinic or a urologist's office with a lab."

"What? You're joking. Are you saying you've never had your boys tested? Not with all the samples you've had to submit?"

"Tony, what samples?" Bruce threw up his hands, "Paragraph two of the Reforms section of the Agreements, right at the top. I'm paraphrasing, 'No blood, bodily fluids, or tissue samples except for defendant-approved research projects, which are limited to defendant-designated parties and facilities.' What they get is the data. That's it unless I chose to submit samples or work with them myself and share the data. I do NOT give out cell or blood samples after the Mr. Blue debacle, and I've never given out semen, period. Ross and his buddies would find a way to get their hands on any biological materials and weaponize them or create another monster somehow."

"You're telling me you have no idea if your boys are swimmers."

Bruce grimaced and clasped his hands behind his head and rocked for a few moments. "Yah, that's essentially right." He'd told Natasha to "do the math" during their heart-to-heart at the Barton's farmhouse months ago. "God, I'm an idiot!"

"You're not an idiot, Bruce. You just made some fairly logical assumptions. Besides, you two were taking precautions and wearing protection, right?"

Bruce just closed his eyes, sunk further into the seat, and bit his lower lip.

"Right? Bruce?"

"Uh, 95% of the time," he said with a very pained look.

Tony stared ahead. He started to say something then changed his mind. He started again, but it took him a few moments before he asked, "Did you go to some wacky religious school without sex education as a kid because I'm having trouble reconciling who I know you are with your actual behavior here."

"I know," said Bruce. "When you deconstruct it like that, it seems pretty stupid in hindsight. I'm not making excuses, but both of us had dismissed the possibility of being able to conceive for most of our adult lives. It just wasn't going to happen. It couldn't. I should have gotten tested a decade ago, but how was I going to give a sample without Hulking out? Sex or even masturbating was out of the question for years. Back then I set off radiation monitors every time my blood pressure went up, so I thought it was a pretty safe assumption that I was infertile since that's what massive doses of radiation does to sperm production. I'm supposed to be sterile."

"So, how much radiation do you put off and when? You are still using the radiation-neutralizing wonder foam? Please tell me you crazy kids are still doing that."

"Yes, that's been 100% from day one. I should have put in a prophylactic component, but I didn't judge it necessary at the time. The radiation is part of a puzzle that Dr. Cho's group is working on right now. Have you looked at any of the raw data?"

"Honestly, I've only looked at the summary charts at the end of each month. There was something odd going on with your temperature, but it wasn't too out of whack for you."

"It was getting to the point that I didn't think the readings were accurate. Well, they aren't inaccurate, but they don't tell the whole story. Unless I'm the Big Guy, the radiation scans indicate it stays concentrated inside my bones now. There isn't a lot of older data to use for a comparison, but if Ross's people had been smart enough, they could have tracked me via the gamma radiation I was putting off back then. In the past, I think S.H.I.E.L.D. was using that method to keep tabs on me. Natasha believes the data was erased and possibly stolen before she did the big data dump after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, but we can't confirm that. It may be a moot point because I don't think anyone could use that method for tracking me now. If fact, I seem to be metabolizing the radiation as it's released out of the marrow, through the bones, and into the muscles and other soft tissues."

Tony took a quick and serious glance at Bruce, "You realize the implications here, right? You're practically a living arc reactor."

"Well, yes, I'm a biological version of a gamma reactor, and apparently, I've upgraded to a more efficient design."

"How much heat do you put off?"

Bruce held out his left hand and motioned for Tony to give him his.

"Why, Bruce, I didn't know you felt that way… Whoa, this is an extremity and you are beyond feverish! Are you sure you're not going through menopause?" Tony moved his hand to Bruce's shirtfront and pressed his palm against Bruce's chest for a moment. "You are at least 104 degrees."

"I would say that's pretty accurate, but you could check the TechUWear app and know down to the third decimal."

"How does Natasha stand you?"

"You have climate control in the Tower; we adjust it down."

"I do not remember the Big Guy running this hot. Granted, he's not the touchy-feely sort with me, but do you have any readings on him?"

"There were some older ones: what little was recovered from Dr. Stern's data after Blonsky trashed the lab and from the incident in the Helicarrier, so that mostly leaves us with what we've collected over the past few years. It doesn't look like the Big Guy's temps run hot, unless he's using a lot more energy and putting out traces of radiation. My guess is that he somehow uses the heat along with the radiation to help produce the mass. I don't have the same need of it for producing mass, so I radiate the heat, which could be the converted radiation."

Tony's mind was racing ahead down the path to future adaptions and extrapolating them out, "How's your appetite?"

"So far it's still there. I think as long as I keep eating, there won't be a problem."

"If you do have an issue with overheating at some point, I'd keep drinking, but try fasting to see if you start converting the heat into energy. You don't appear to be doing a lot of sweating?"

"I can sweat just fine like anyone else when it's appropriate, but now, apparently I've adjusted to a warmer norm."

"Yah, you're your own little climate change experiment."

They were exiting the expressway now, so it wouldn't be too long until they pulled into the airfield.

"If you don't mind me asking," Tony glanced over at Bruce and quirked an eyebrow, "how are things going with the Liminal experiences?"

Bruce bit his lower lip and exhaled, "How much do you want to hear?"

"All of it you want to tell me."

Bruce took a few moments to gather his thoughts as he watched the urban landscape turn into suburban neighborhoods with single-family housing. "Some of this you already know. I'm not always just me, but I'm not struggling against it anymore. We're together a lot in my head. He'd be happy if I just left him alone most days, but there is some understanding there that things work better when we try to have some trust and not be at odds. There are times when he feels compelled to be in the same headspace with me, and I'm getting a pretty good handle on what draws us together. Concern for Natasha is at the top of the list. An adrenaline rush is still effective. Being at the angry edge is… frankly, exhausting, even if it does keep him close and available, so we only go there when necessary. He has a tough time with sensory and emotional overloading, so I try not to dump anymore on him than necessary. The psychiatrist thinks what I've done since childhood, in order to function, is to wall up all my negative emotions and trauma, which is also what's made that part of me the Hulk."

Tony was quiet for several long minutes. Bruce and he had talked about this before, but it had been months now since he'd brought it up, and Bruce was never one for volunteering something this personal. Clearly, he had been making progress in what sounded like a positive direction, but it didn't sound like the Hulk was completely onboard yet. He finally asked, "Does that part of you understand any of this? That it was a coping measure, something you had no choice in doing when you were what, eight years old?"

"It was more like four. I don't know. He can be like a child who's been locked away and neglected himself. He has so many 'deficits' in communication and socialization, it's hard to gage how much he comprehends, especially the abstract concepts, but I think he gets the emotions. I'm pretty sure he knows I'm sorry. I may finally be off the shit list, but he hasn't taken me off probation. He's still very wary of me trying to suppress or wall him up. It's taken a life time to get here, so we're not going to be all fixed in a few months."

"Is the plan to integrate you two?"

"I don't know yet. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we're a kind of gestalt and not completely separate beings. I know the Other Guy will have a hard time with the idea that we are the same person since we fractured so early. To answer your question, I doubt full integration is going to be a goal."

Tony nodded, "Fair enough." Tony turned down a well-maintained but unmarked road.

Bruce's phone hummed and he pulled it out of his pocket to check the text. "It's Pepper. They're on their way to the general practitioner/obgyn's office. 'No drugging or handcuffs needed'." Bruce texted back a thank you and a smiley. He gratefully let go of a small amount of the tension he was carrying.

Tony pulled up to the gate and chatted with the security guard for a moment before pulling through the checkpoint and continuing on to the hangar. He drove past the parking spaces on the side of the building and straight into the hanger.

The pilot and copilot of the custom Learjet 85 were apparently going through a final check and conferring with a mechanic. Tony looked over at Bruce, "Any last words?" Bruce smiled and shook his head. "Great, let's go do some science!"