Alright, tough question time.

In regards to Bruce and Darcy having sex, because yeah, that seems like the inevitable thing that'll come eventually...I'm just having writer's indecision here. So this is your vote. Are you all okay with that sort of a chapter (I'm not graphic, I promise!) in here? Should I move it to M if I do that? (Again, it would NOT be graphic!) Would it be a good idea to put a warning in the chapter BEFORE I write that sequence, so that anyone who doesn't want it can just skip the chapter? (I'd publish two at once, so that everyone does have something to read!) Would you prefer a separate one shot related to this story about that?

Basically, there are three options. 1. No chapter, I just skip that part of it. I don't really want to do that, but I'd be willing to leave it if there was a lot of reader protest.

2. Non graphic chapter within the story

3. Separate oneshot

If you want to leave me a review, or drop me a PM on your opinions...I'm leaving this one up to you guys. If there was to be no chapter within the story, I'd probably write a oneshot regardless. So yeah...can some people give me opinions on this? It wouldn't happen for quite a while, but there are some subplots and events that I have in mind, that would be dependent on whether or not the chapter happens. So I sort of need to know right away, just for writing's sake. If you could let me know, that would be fabulous!

Also, tomorrow's Remembrance Day, if you're Canadian. I don't know how many of my readers are that, but having married into the military, it's a lot closer to my heart right now than it's ever been. So while I hope my fellow Canucks are enjoying their long weekend, I'd also ask that you take a moment tomorrow to think about the men and women who have given up so much in order to give us our freedom. As a military wife, I know how hard it is to send the person you love off to go defend their country. And I know how hard it is for my husband to be the one leaving his family behind. So if you are serving, or have served, or love someone who is serving, thank you for what you do. Thank you for keeping the peace and preserving our freedom. Thank you for letting your loved ones go. And lest we forget. (I'm allowed to be emotional about this, okay?) :)

So with that out of the way, on with the story!

She hadn't exactly expected him to say yes when she'd suggested her plan. But he hadn't even blinked when he'd agreed to go. And she was pretty sure that he'd enjoyed not telling Tony where they were going, leaving the billionaire in baffled curiosity.

Darcy had heard about it from some of the girls who she'd gone to college with, and had always wanted to see what it was like. That was why she and Bruce were heading to the Bronx zoo for the day. Not only was it the largest zoo in the world, but Bruce had already warned her that they wouldn't be able to see it all in a day. Which was exactly the sort of challenge Darcy enjoyed.

"Are we there yet?" she asked, trying to kill New York's infamous traffic with her glare. She wanted to see as much of the zoo as they possibly could before it closed. And New York traffic wasn't cooperating.

"Not yet." Bruce laughed. "Gotta love New York drivers." He hit the brakes in order to avoid hitting someone who had cut into the lane in front of them.

They'd mapped it out on Google Maps, and what was apparently supposed to be a 26 minute drive had turned into over an hour in the car. Darcy couldn't say she really minded, though, especially when Bruce attempted to entertain her with his ridiculously cheesy animal jokes. (What did the cow say to his girlfriend? You're like no udder!) They'd swapped a couple stories about the good memories they'd had from growing up, a welcome change from their usually angsty background story exchanges.

When they'd finally made it into the parking lot, Bruce parked the black SUV they'd borrowed with permission from Pepper with a grin. "Ready to go?"

"Oh yeah." she said, smiling back. They walked up to the teal and brown 'Bronx Zoo' sign, and Bruce stepped forward to pay for their admission, despite Darcy's protests.

"Not a date, remember?" she'd said.

"Doesn't matter. I always treat a lady when I go out with her." Bruce had replied with a wink.

"You sound like Steve." she'd grumbled.

They made it past a group of shrieking children with party hats and tired parents attempting to herd them, and then Bruce opened the map that they'd received at the gate. "Where do you wanna go first?" he'd asked.

Darcy looked around his arm so that she could see the map. "African plains?"

"Sounds good." They started to make their way through the zoo's paths, until they'd reached the African plains stretch of the zoo. They paused to let a child chasing parent to run by, and then continued on their way.

"Kids." Bruce said, laughing.

Darcy decided to blurt out the question. "Do you want kids?"

"Of course I don't want kids." Paul had sneered. "Why the hell would I want kids?"

"For the same reason our parents did?" Darcy asked. "Don't you ever want to have a family?" Paul rolled his eyes.

"I want to do things with my life, Darcy." Paul said, looking up from his term paper to glare at her. "Unless you plan on giving up YOUR life, and YOUR career so that we can have a couple little brats running around, we are not having kids."

"Maybe." Bruce said carefully. "Darce-I don't even know if I can. We'd have to...you know, run some tests, to see if I could, and if there would be any side affects from my...condition. And I'm old enough as it is-"

"I didn't ask if you could have kids." Darcy interrupted. "I asked if you wanted them."

Bruce blew out a long sigh. "Yeah, I do. I'd love kids, Darcy, but...call it me thinking that my past is going to screw me up...I don't know if I'd be a good Dad. Did I ever tell you about mine?"

"I don't think so." she answered, pausing to glance at a crossroads sign that was intended to give people who couldn't read maps some indication of which direction they should go. "And I think we're going the wrong way."

"Oops." Bruce chuckled. They began to walk towards the African Plains, going the right way this time. "Ah, Darce. He was a bastard. He never even wanted me. He was...I guess my Grandpa wasn't much better than he was, and my Dad thought that it was a genetic thing."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Nope. He called it a monster gene, tried to say that it was the reason for the way he acted, and the way he treated my Mom and I."

"You've never told me about your Mom." Darcy said softly.

Bruce shook his head. "My Mom...her name was Rebecca. My Dad killed her, Darcy. Right in front of me. She was...ah, it's a messed up story. He believed that I was a monster, like him, and avoided me completely. He tried to keep my Mom away from me, and he'd leave me with this Nurse. You'd call her a Nanny, I guess."

"Holy shit." Darcy said, stopping in her tracks. "Why the hell have I been the only one whining about my childhood?"

Bruce grabbed her hand. "For one thing, it isn't whining. And I've had more time to deal with it than you have." He paused for a moment. "Anyways, he thought I was a monster, and began to use it as an excuse to beat me. My mom...she'd try to stop him, and then he'd beat her too. It was sick, Darce. It was really sick."

"Is-is that how she died?" Darcy dared to ask.

"Sort of." he sighed. "We were going to run away. We had everything, and we were packing the car...he wasn't supposed to be home yet. We were supposed to get away. But we didn't. And then he killed her."

"Bruce..." Darcy moaned softly. "Bruce, I am so sorry."

He gave her a sad smile. "You know what the worst part was? After all those years I'd spent trying to convince myself that I wasn't a monster, and that I wasn't like him? I turned into one."

"He's not a monster." Darcy said, surprising herself by coming to the Hulk's defence. Bruce raised his eyebrows at her in surprise.

"You sure about that?"

She nodded her head. "Yep. Because he's a part of you, Bruce. You can deny it all you want, but I've seen the footage. He's protecting the same people that you would. He's just being more big and angry about it. And I will never believe that you're a monster."

He smiled fondly. "Whatever you say."

"Don't brush me off." she warned him. He chuckled.

"Never. But I'm pretty sure we're supposed to be enjoying ourselves right now. Not being all depressing, you know?"

"Yep." Darcy agreed. "But for the record, I think you'd be a pretty awesome Dad."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "You're about the only one, but...thanks anyways Darce." He pointed to a sign indicating the direction of the lions. "And I think we found the right place!"

They walked into the exhibit, pausing to allow an older couple shuffle by them. They walked up to the enclosure, and Darcy immediately giggled when she realized that there were lion cubs in the enclosure. The four little cubs were running around the enclosure, kicking up dust as they tackled each other to the ground. A full grown lioness, who Darcy thought was the mother, watched the gathered crowd with a glare as she lay sprawled out across a rock.

"They are so cute!" Darcy giggled, pulling out her camera to snap some shots of them.

"Did you know that lions use their tails to flirt?" asked Bruce.

"Does anyone know that other than you?" Darcy teased. "And seriously?"

Bruce laughed. "Yep. The reason they have the tasseled tail is so that they can signal each other. They're the only member of the cat family with a tail like that."

"How do you even know that?" Darcy asked, as they watched the cubs playing for a couple more moments.

"The only TV channel in English that I got in Calcutta was Animal Planet. The weird stuff is the stuff that sticks with you."

"Amen to that." Darcy agreed, as they continued on their way.

They spent the day wandering through the zoo, laughing and talking the entire way. Bruce listened patiently when Darcy launched into one of her tirades about today's problems in politics (It was triggered by the monkeys, okay?). She let him make use of his Animal Planet knowledge, at which point he began to try and remember the most obscure facts about any animal they saw. (She was pretty sure he was making some of them up, because a giraffe had to sleep for more than 1-12 minutes at a time!)

They'd made their way through the African Plains, and then had proceeded through the less populated Madagascar section. Darcy had been freaked out by a Madagascar hissing cockroach, and then they'd both been properly disturbed by a couple of the lemurs getting busy. (Nobody needed to see that!)

"That is so Tony." Darcy giggled as they'd walked away from the engaged monkeys.

"Except Pepper would never go for that." Bruce said. "Hey, I've got an idea. Do you care where we go next?"

Darcy shrugged. "Not really. Why?"

"I think we should go to the Children's Zoo."

She had to laugh. "Seriously? What, are we embracing our inner child?"

"Hey! Can you honestly say that you've ever had the opportunity to feed a goat?" Bruce pointed to the brochure. "Or shimmy up a spider web? Darcy, we have got to try this!"

His earnestness as he said it was adorable, and Darcy eventually agreed to go along with it. "But if we get kicked out by concerned parents, I totally blame you for this."

They'd successfully navigated their way to the Children's Zoo, and Darcy had to admit, it was pretty awesome.

"Okay, so what exactly is there to do here?" she asked.

"Well, we can apparently hop like a frog, or crawl like a tortoise...Or we could have our picture taken with a chicken."

Darcy snorted. "Wow, seriously?"

Bruce looked at her seriously, his eyes glittering with mischief. "What? You don't want to hop like a frog?"

"I like my dignity intact, thank you." she'd replied.

"Suit yourself." said Bruce. With that, he dropped down into a crouch, and began to hop along the pathway. Darcy was pretty sure there were people questioning his mental sanity at that point.

"Bruce!" she shrieked, as he stood up to grin at her mischeviously. "Oh my god, you're like a two year old!"

He laughed. "Dignity still intact, Lewis?"

She laughed with him. "Come on, I still want to feed those goats."

They'd done just that. And when the day had finally drawn to a close, Darcy was more relaxed than she could ever remember being. They'd stopped to buy a pre-supper ice cream, and were walking along with the hordes of people leaving the zoo.

"That was way fun." she admitted.

"I can't remember the last time I've been to the zoo." Bruce said, his words mumbled as he tried to keep his cookie dough ice cream from melting all over his hands.

He'd held the SUV door open for her like a gentleman, and then they'd driven back to the tower. Darcy pulled her camera out of her purse and began to look through the pictures they'd taken that day. She began laughing when she found the pictures of the goat feeding. "I look so freaked out."

Bruce laughed. "I knew they wouldn't bite your hand off, Darce. You could've just taken my word for it."

"I wasn't sure, okay?" she protested. She laughed even harder when she reached the pictures they'd shot at the animal photo booth. "Oh, god Bruce. I am framing this!"

He looked over and moaned. "Seriously?"

Bruce and Darcy were kneeling down by a chicken in the picture. Darcy looked radiant, although she was keeping a bit of distance from the chicken. Bruce, however, looked like he'd just run away from a tornado. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and there was a smudge of dirt on his face from where a llama had decided to lick him.

"That is awesome." She laughed, while he just rolled his eyes. She turned her camera off and dug her phone out of her purse. She'd opted to leave it in the SUV for the day, and yelped when she saw the missed call history.

"What?" Bruce asked, glancing over at her for a moment before returning his eyes to the road.

"37 missed calls? What the hell?" as she said it, her phone began to ring again. She answered it immediately.

"Hey, this is Darcy."

"Darce? It's Clint. Where the hell are you? I've been trying to ahold of you all day!"

"Who is it?" Bruce mouthed to her.

"Clint." She answered, before replying to the caller in question. "Why? Is something wrong?"

"Is Bruce there?" Clint asked, conveniently ignoring the question.

"Um...yeah?"

"Darcy, I need you to put him on right now."

She handed him the phone with a confused shrug. Bruce pressed it to his ear as he made a lane change. "Hey, what's up Clint?"

Almost immediately, a shadow crossed his face. He glanced over at Darcy, who mouthed "What's wrong?" to him. He just shook his head.

"When?" he asked, frowning as they continued to drive back to the Tower.

"Okay. We're about 20 minutes away." he said. He glanced over at Darcy.

"Yeah, I'll tell her. Okay. Yep. Bye."

"What's wrong?" Darcy asked, as soon as he hung up the phone.

Bruce ran his hand through his hair. "Um, Darce? I think we've got a problem."

She began to feel the familiar panic of anxiety creeping up on her, and shoved it away the best she could. "What's wrong?" she asked, for the third time.

Bruce stared at the road for a moment. "What was your step Dad's name?"

"What?"

"Your step Dad's name. What was it?"

Darcy gripped the door handle with all her might. "Michael Lewis. Why, Bruce?"

Bruce blew out a long sigh. "Apparently he's at the Tower right now. And he wants to see you."

And...that's where we leave it for now! (I know, I'm mean. I'd apologize...but I'm not feeling terribly sorry!)

Thanks to the internet for helping me out with all that wonderful research that went into this chapter. I have never been to Bronx Zoo, so I apologize if my representation of it isn't bang on. The story of Bruce's Dad, Brian Banner, is 100% Wikipedia certified, although in this story Bruce did NOT kill his Dad. The story about Rebecca Banner and how she died, and the reason Bruce's dad was abusive towards him is the actual background story as told by Marvel comics. (Research on writer's part!)

And yes, lions do use their tails to flirt. And giraffes do only sleep for 1-12 minutes at a time. See, even I learn stuff writing this!

Reviews aren't guaranteed to make me write faster, but they do help!