Chapter 14

After the Stuttgart incident, Alice was not surprised when she was relocated. She was also not surprised that her outing privileges had been revoked indefinitely. She was surprised that she was still allowed her own room (though Agent Thompson was still only an adjoining door away). And SHIELD still seemed determined to spare no expense for her comfort. The suite she was confined to was huge and decadent, and she felt completely out of place among its thick crimson curtains and gold-fringed pillows. Tommy told her they were in Switzerland, but he wouldn't say where exactly, probably trying to discourage any urge on her part to explore the surroundings.

It didn't matter. Alice was too worried about Bruce to care much about Switzerland. The man in Stuttgart had rattled her more than she cared to admit. His name was Loki, but Agent Thompson wasn't willing to reveal anything else about him. She didn't really need to know much else to know that he was dangerous. She had seen it in his eyes, could still hear it in his voice in her dreams.

"Alice Ripley… A girl playing Beauty to a beast in man's clothing… You and I have so much in common, wearing the chains of our families around our necks…"

She would wake up in sweats, her hand clutched to her bare neck. The weight of her parents' rings was noticeably absent. It made her anxious. She had not gone a day without them since they'd died and the fact that they were missing felt like a bad omen. It made her nervous for Bruce. Was he in the same place as that tyrant? What was he doing? Had he even gotten her message? As each day crawled past, Alice wavered between faith and doubt. Surely if he had gotten her note she would have heard from him by now, but her new phone remained still and silent in her pocket. Then again, he was probably surrounded by SHIELD agents, maybe it wasn't possible for him to call. Maybe they had confiscated the note from Captain Rogers and Bruce had never received it to begin with. Or maybe something else had happened…

Alice didn't want to think about that. She couldn't. If she did she might have a panic attack and she needed to stay calm. She did no one any good by falling apart. So she sat in her room and pretended to watch subtitled French TV, trying not to check her phone every other minute. She just wished Bruce would call, that anyone would call, that someone would tell her something. The uncertainty was driving her to the edge of sanity.

By the third day, she felt like her mind had turned to mush. She was slumped on the king sized bed, staring mindlessly at images flickering on the screen, when a buzz vibrated against her thigh. She jerked upright. The buzz sounded again and she was on her feet, scrambling in her pocket. She jerked the phone out and didn't even bother to look at the display before she flipped it open.

"Hello?" she hissed into the phone, tiptoeing into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her, leaving the TV blaring in the other room, "Bruce? Is that you?"

There was a minute of silence on the other end. Alice held her breath. Then she heard a long sigh.

"Alice…"

A knot of worry in her chest relaxed. The voice was tired and bleak, but it was undeniably Bruce's voice.

"Bruce, thank god," she said, sinking down onto the edge of the tub, "Where are you, are you okay?"

There was another pause. Alice waited, but her chest started to tighten again as the seconds of silence stretched on.

"Bruce?"

"Alice, I…"

His voice broke. Alice's heart was pounding.

"Alice, there was a… an attack."

Her chest constricted painfully.

"Bruce, are you okay?" she asked again, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

He chuckled, but it was bitter.

"Yeah, I'm peachy."

In the relief that followed, Alice could finally think and she was able guess why Bruce sounded so guilt-stricken and tired.

"He showed up, didn't he? The Other Guy."

Another pause and then Bruce's voice was so soft, so stricken, that it made Alice's heart ache.

"I couldn't stop it."

"I know," Alice said, her voice soothing, "I know you couldn't. Bruce, if you were attacked there was nothing you could do…"

"I should have listened to you."

His voice was sharp.

"I should have listened when you told me to run," he said, "Even doing everything I could, I couldn't keep you safe."

Alice reeled from the change in direction. When had the conversation become about her? Keep her safe? She hadn't even been… Then she realized he wasn't talking about the Other Guy.

"Are you talking about Stuttgart?" Alice said, feeling a flare of fiery indignation, "Bruce, that had nothing to do with you."

"It had everything to do with me!" Bruce said, his voice rising, "You wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me!"

"I chose to be there!" Alice said, raising her voice to match his, "Everything I did, that was my call and don't you dare try to take that from me! Because for the first time in my life, I didn't want to die!"

There was silence on the other end. Alice took a deep breath and lowered her voice.

"I thought I was going to die, Bruce. It was staring at me, right in the face, and I… I thought of you. And I wanted to live."

Still silence. The only reason she even knew he was still on the line was because she could hear background noise.

"Bruce," she murmured, "Tell me what's going on."

He sighed.

"It's big, Alice. Bigger than you, than me, bigger than… than Him."

Alice closed her eyes. Bigger than the Other Guy? She could still see him in her mind, as plain as if she'd seen him yesterday. What could be bigger than that?

"The reason I called…" he went on, "I needed to tell you… I need you to know…"

"I know," Alice said and she did. She didn't need him to say it, didn't want him to say it, not like this, "I know, me too. Bruce, just be careful, okay?"

Silence. There was a loud beep in the receiver.

"I gotta go."

"Bruce, promise me you'll be careful!" Alice said, high-pitched desperation in her voice.

There was a long pause.

"I can't," Bruce whispered.

Then the line went dead.

Bruce hung up the receiver and stepped out of the phone booth. He looked up at the sky. It was clear blue, only a scattering of clouds. It would have been a beautiful day... if it weren't for the gaping black hole torn out just above the New York City skyline. He couldn't hear anything from this distance, but he knew that the others were already there, fighting desperately to hold the city against the hordes of… things pouring through the rift. No one knew where he was. They weren't expecting his help. He could turn his back and walk away and no one would be the wiser.

"I thought of you… and I wanted to live."

Alice wanted to live. She had spent all of her adult life waiting for death, and now she wanted to live. It was miracle in the midst of the apocalypse, a ray of light in the darkness. And now, Bruce knew what he was willing to do to keep Alice safe. Anything. Alice wanted to live. Bruce would do everything in his power to make sure she was able to do so. He was done being careful.

He got onto the scooter that he had managed to hotwire, and headed into the city.

Back in Switzerland, Alice sat on the edge of the tub and stared at her phone screen for a long time, riddled with guilt and anxiety. Had she done enough? Had she told him what he needed to hear? She didn't know what he was facing, she recognized that it was far beyond her comprehension, but she didn't care. All she wanted was for Bruce to come back, safe. Nothing else mattered. And she was afraid that it might not be possible.

When she finally came out of the bathroom, Agent Thompson was sitting on the edge of her bed staring at the TV. He looked up when she came in, then gestured at the screen.

"You should see this," he said, in that calm robotic voice.

She shuffled over and sank down onto the bed next to him. The image was of the New York City skyline. A reporter was gibbering on faster than the captions could keep up, but Alice didn't need commentary to see what was going on. There was a black hole ripped out of the sky and creatures were pouring through it. It looked like Captain America and Iron Man, along with a couple others that she didn't recognize, were trying to hold the city against the things that were flying out of the hole in the sky. But when a creature that looked like a cross between a turtle, a dragon, and a war machine came slithering out of the hole, Alice felt her heart sink. It was massive and impenetrable, mowing through office buildings like they were blades of grass. And she remembered what Bruce had said.

"Bigger than you, than me… bigger than Him…"

Agent Thompson pointed at the screen.

"There's your boy."

Alice jerked upright and almost fell off the edge of the bed. A camera caught a blurry image, just barely making out a knot of people facing down the creature. And as she watched, her heart in her throat, a huge green shape burst from the group and rushed the beast, slamming a fist into the creature's head and crushing it like an aluminum soda can. She jumped and threw a fist in the air.

"Yes!" she yelped, before she realized what she was doing and sat down.

The rest of the battle was a blur, mostly because the footage was terrible, but also because Alice spent most of her time looking for glimpses of the Hulk in the madness, riding a roller coaster of building terror when he disappeared and rushing relief with every glimpse she caught. And then it was over. The hole snapped shut and the coverage started playing again, over and over with more frantic commentary that Alice wasn't listening to. She had seen him in the last moments, snatching a tiny figure from the air and crashing to the ground, before the coverage had ended. But she knew that he was alright. Bruce was alive. He was safe. And he had saved the world. It was finally over. She sat back and smiled.

"I knew it wasn't too big," she said, turning to Agent Thompson, "Nothing's too big for him."