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Abruptly, the agent's body stopped shaking, the climax of the pain coming and going in a matter of seconds. For a moment, the Hulk didn't know what to do; Tess looked so lifeless on the ground, and he began to worry. If he hadn't seen her body slowly and gently rising from her shallow breathing, he would have believed her to be gone. With great care, the Hulk took one of his hands and placed it on her back, trying to get her to stir.

"Tess?" the large green man questioned her, his massive fingers gingerly trying to wake her, trying to get her to react. And after a few moments, she did begin to move; but not the way he expected her to.

Without a sound, the woman before him began to rise to her feet, standing as if she hadn't just suffered as much as she did. Before she even stood up fully he could see she was taking a defensive pose. Unnerved by the sudden rising of the agent, the Hulk took a few steps back, watching her carefully. He began to take a defensive pose himself, unsure of what else to do.

However, when her head snapped up and their eyes met, he saw that her expression didn't match her stance. While her body looked prepared to fight, her face looked as if she might sob. And her eyes were bright blue.

"Bruce, get out of here!" she began to cry out once more, desperately wanting him to get out of her line of fire before he was hurt. Her stance then widened against her will, and her fists, clenched at her sides, became engulfed in flames. Tess began to panic.

"Bruce, I can't control it!" she repeated.

However, the Hulk didn't move, and instead continued to watch her hesitantly.

"Tess…" he repeated himself once more. He reached out his hand, not very certain of what he was supposed to do.

But that's when the large, green man made a mistake; he took a single step towards her, throwing the woman on fire into action.

Tess's body threw a large, destructive fireball at the massive man, quickly followed by another of equal size. The Hulk was only barely able to avoid the two projectiles, able to feel the intense heat they gave off as they flew past him. Startled, he looked back at her, only to see her hands flaming once more. However, this time she was creating long, dangerous whips at her sides. Hulk didn't like the looks of that. Her words were finally reaching him; someone was controlling her.

Tess began to move offensively, beginning to charge at the Hulk as she skillfully snapped the whips in his direction, her arms aiming to injure. Not wanting to charge at her himself, he began to try and avoid the tap of the whips, like a deadly game of tag. But as she came closer, the task became more difficult for a large body like himself, and at one point, one of the weapons hit his arm, and the intense heat burned his skin, causing him to cry out. With the whips coming closer and his options of movement hastily disappearing, he quickly decided that he needed to disable the whips immediately.

Rebuking his previous thoughts of not charging the woman, the Hulk began to run at her full speed, taking her by surprise enough for her to release the whips. Instead of charging into her like he would have a normal assailant, he picked her up instead, backing her into the closest wall behind her to give him an advantage. Dropping her to the ground and forcing her to her knees, he gripped her hands tightly so that she couldn't open them, but not enough that he was hurting her. He couldn't bring himself to do that, even in this situation.

However, Hulk's hands were suddenly set ablaze; Tess had fired up the hands that he held, burning the insides of his fists with direct heat.

He cried out in pain but did not release his hold on her.

"Bruce, let go!" the woman shouted, terrified and ashamed she was hurting Bruce. She could tell she was in tremendous pain by the look on his face, and she felt nauseous knowing she couldn't control herself.

The Hulk howled in defiance, refusing to give into the pain as his skin continued to withstand the intense heat. He had battled things much larger, much scarier than her, and he wasn't about to be defeated by such a small creature, no matter how much fire she threw at him. He could feel Banner stirring inside of him, trying to figure out a way to get themselves out of this mess. He would allow the puny doctor to desperately mull over this thoughts; Hulk wasn't very good at that. But Hulk could fight, unlike the doctor.

After a few more excruciating moments, Tess's body suddenly extinguished the fire, much to the Hulk's relief. He didn't release her hands however, knowing that wouldn't be the end of the battle. He was quickly proved correct, because he could feel a warmth begin to radiate from her fists once more, only it wasn't a heat like he had felt moments before. He had no idea what to expect.

But she did; her hands were beginning to charge.

"Bruce, my hands are charging," she told him immediately, warning him about the new danger. "Bruce, I'm about to get really strong, be careful."

What could be stronger than Hulk? the large man asked himself, almost about to blow off the warning. However, he remembered how she was able to deflect his fueled punches earlier that day, and that was when she was taking the defensive role. Now she was the offense, and with the Tesseract's energy making her stronger than ever, she was nothing to brush off.

Suddenly, the Hulk felt a great force begin to push against him, enough that he had to push against it himself to stay in place. He looked down at Tess to see her rising from her knees and onto her feet. She seemed to be growing stronger by the moment.

"Bruce, I'm still reaping energy," she informed him, her voice struggling with the exertion her body was putting out. "I'm only going to get-"

She didn't have a chance to finish her statement. Her voice was cut off when she suddenly threw the Hulk back, making the juggernaut stagger backwards. Recovering from the unexpected bout of strength she just displayed, he looked at her with a great look of shock on his features.

The Hulk had never experienced something like this before. It was now a question of whether he was strong enough for her.

As he watched her, she began to charge him.

Leaping in the air, Tess threw a terrible, powerful punch into the Hulk's head, roughly knocking him back as she did so. While he staggered back and tried to regain his composure and footing, her attacks didn't lessen, and once her own feet touched the ground, she continued to throw punches at the Hulk. Her advances came relentlessly, grunts and huffs coming from Bruce as she attacked him in the stomach, ribs, shoulders, face, and he did nothing to defend himself. Bruce was so afraid of hurting her if he retaliated, and that's why he was going to lose this battle. He didn't know what else to do. If he fought back, really fought back, he could kill her. But if he didn't do something soon, she was going to kill him.

Tess knew she needed to be stopped, terminated, whatever was going to end her advances. Her assault on the Hulk had already been occurring for a short while, and she while she had no idea how much longer Bruce could stand being her punching bag, she also knew she would not be letting up soon. Her muscles weren't feeling fatigued with all the energy she was collecting from around her; She could very well continue fighting like this for hours, and she knew it. The only way to get her to stop would be to stop Loki's control of her. But how was she supposed to do that?

A thought struck her then, a thought so sudden it was like one of her blows. When Phil shot Loki with that alien weapon earlier that day, the control he had over her was instantly cut. And while there was no way of her delivering such a blow, she knew of someone who was more than willing and capable of doing such a deed.

"Bruce, I can't stop!" she shouted over the sound of fire now igniting in both of her hands once more. The Hulk now began to back away from her, but still gave her his attention. "You have to find Loki and take him down! The connection will break! Hurting him stops the control, I'll be able to have control again!"

Oh how the Hulk liked that idea. He suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of relief at having a goal now, something he could do to help her instead of just standing there as she injured him. He knew he couldn't fight her without actually fighting her, but this was an idea he could work with. Loki was in his sights now, and he could do to the troubled god what he wouldn't imagine doing to Tess; smashing him.

Bruce nodded to her, and then the Hulk did something he wasn't accustomed to; he retreated. Quickly jumping at an impossible height over the woman, and out of her reach, he speedily exited the area, unsure if she would follow or not.

She didn't.

Tess's body was motionless for a few moments, standing in place as if waiting for a command. The fire in her fists had gone out now, and the woman could feel her hands beginning to release its stored energy and in turn its strength. She breathed a sigh of relief for the moment as she stood at attention on the empty street. She needed time to think, time to formulate a plan to save herself if Bruce couldn't stop Loki, and if these moments were all she was going to get, she needed to use them wisely.

Tess took a deep breath and began to mentally examine herself, trying to get a reading of what was happening to her. The mutant could feel the foreign energy running through her body, there like an unwanted parasite latching onto her. It felt unnatural, unreal. But she could feel it and separate herself from it, know what was the energy and what was her body. That was a start.

Suddenly, her feet began to move once more, taking her to an unknown location, if they had one. She hadn't the slightest clue where her own feet were guiding her, but she knew one thing for certain. Her body was looking for a fight. She could tell in its posture, in its movements.

"See, Theresa? Is this not so much simpler?"

As he had done before, Loki's form appeared out of thin air next to her, sauntering alongside her as she marched through the thankfully deserted street. His stride was long and confident as he traveled with her, the aura around him one of confidence and victory.

"Get out of my head, you bastard," Tess snarled at him, unable to look him in the eye as she said so.

He ignored her comment, smiling gently.

"You have been given a spectacular gift, human," the demi-god continued. his tone light and conversational. "Most of your kind would used such an advantage to gain even more power. But of course, such an asset would be wasted on a being such as yourself, one unwilling to use it." He tsked this tongue then, as if chiding her for a small offense. "I, however, do not have the same aversion as you."

Tess couldn't stand to listen to him any longer. This was her body, her powers. She would do with them as she desired. She would not be controlled.

"I hope he destroys you."

Loki chuckled at the comment. He knew very well who she was referring to, having been there for the scene between the two. "Let the beast find me. I need not fear a mindless creature such as he."

It was in that single word that Tess's anger became almost nauseating to herself; she was sick of Bruce being referred to as a beast by everyone, including himself; that one word was her turning point. She had so much anger in her from everything in her life, everything in this day. She was tired of being shunned on the Helicarrier, tired of the isolation, tired of having to hide who she was from almost everyone around her. And most of all, she was violated and enraged at being a puppet, of not being able to move her own body and of having it used against her.

This anger was coursing through her, and for a moment, it was able to dominate the energy, and Tess could feel it did. She tested this small control she was able to gain, and her hope returned. She was able to do something Loki didn't realize as he walked beside her in his confidence; she had moved her own hand.

Tess mentally smirked. Emotions. That was how she was going to beat this. All she needed was a reason to beat the energy, a reason she could feel. She could get herself out of this.