"Agent Lennart are under house arrest, effective immediately, until Director Fury says otherwise. Is that understood?"
"Aw c'mon!" Piper whined, pouting petulantly as she stared at Agent Maria Hill with wide, guileless eyes. "What is this? Gang up on Piper Week or something?" She threw her hands in the air in frustration, "I mean, so I left Agent Jackass in the Hulk Room for a while. It's not like I forgot he was there."
"Actually, you did." Bruce pointed out mildly from where he was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea. "You didn't remember until Agent Hill came to pick him up."
Piper whirled around and pointed at him accusingly, "Hey, who's side are you on?!"
The doctor sighed and stated patiently, "I'm not on anyone's side, Piper."
"Uh, yeah, you are. Mine." Piper flung her arm out towards Agent Hill, who remained stoic despite the clawed appendage only inches from her face, "Not hers, or Nicky, or Agent Jackass's. Mine." Abruptly, she let her arm fall and spun back towards Agent Hill, "Speaking of Nicky, he has no right to ground me, because I didn't do anything wrong!"
"You left Agent Rollins in a containment room designed for," She paused and glanced at Bruce, but he was seemingly entranced by the tea in his mug, so she continued, "For the Hulk, for fifteen hours without food or water."
"Yeah, yeah, so everyone keeps reminding me." Piper crossed her arms over her chest and stomped her foot childishly. It wasn't like being in the Hulk Room for fifteen hours would kill him. She spent most of her life in an eight-by-eight concrete cell, receiving maybe two meals a day. And that was if she behaved, which she rarely did. Agent Rollins was such a pussy. She decided not to keep her opinion on Agent Rollins' resemblance to female genitalia to herself, much to Bruce's chagrin.
The Deputy Director of SHIELD's face remained stoic as she replied coolly, "Be that as it may, you are still under house arrest until further notice."
"This is not fair." The female mutant huffed and crossed her arms, turning her head to glare at the fridge as if it was the cause of all her problems. "Honestly, if you had gotten stuck with him babysitting you, you would have shot him! He wanted to follow me into the bathroom for hell's sake!"
Bruce made a noise behind her that could have either been a poorly concealed chuckle or a growl of annoyance. Even if Piper wasn't as worked up as she was, she wouldn't have been able to tell which it was.
Gesturing wildly, Piper continued to rant as if Bruce hadn't made any noise. "I mean, I have no problem taking a piss in front of someone when I have to, but come on! Did he expect me to climb out the window from whatever story my damn room is on?! At that point he was just asking for it! I mean, can't everyone just be grateful I didn't kill the bastard?"
"Agent Lennart, please cease acting like a child." Agent Hill finally snapped, her patience worn thin by the mutant woman in front of her. "Agent Rollins was assigned to watch over you and by locking him in the Hulk Room, you prevented him from doing his job. You broke the rules Fury set up for you, now you have to deal with the consequences, so suck it up."
Piper's eyes flashed red and she hissed lowly, fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides. Agent Hill didn't react and merely continued to stare Piper down, having long since become used to the feral mutant's intimidation tactics in the four months she had been on base.
Hissing one last time in fury, Piper stomped passed Agent Hill and out of the kitchen. Once she had disappeared, Maria let out a soft exhale and closed her eyes. Just because she was used to Piper's intimidation tactics she might be, didn't mean they still didn't intimidate her, she was just better at hiding how much the feral woman scared her. Opening her eyes, she caught Bruce regarding her curiously from behind his cup of tea.
"Want a cup? You look like you could use it." He asked mildly, holding his mug up for emphasis, "I know, Piper can be...a handful."
He didn't really know the half of it, having spent a little less than a week in her company, as opposed to Agent Hill, who had had to deal with her for four months. The Deputy Director thought about taking him up on his offer for a second then regretfully shook her head. "Thank you, Dr. Banner, but I have to head back to base now that I've finished with Lennart." The dark haired woman glanced in the direction Piper had gone in then looked over at Bruce with a small, wry smile, "Have a nice day."
Bruce raised his cup in a silent salute and thank you, watching as the SHIELD agent exited the kitchen before standing. He placed his empty cup in the sink then headed to the private elevator, deciding to head down to the private lab in the basement Tony had set up for him during the reconstruction. The lab had been a gift from Tony the day he'd returned to Malibu, since he'd been secretly working on it while perfecting the Hulk Room with it was connected to. Bruce had been very grateful, because as much as he enjoyed working with Tony in the billionaire's private lab near the top of the Tower, he was always worried about having an episode and not being able to get to the Room in time. With his own lab, he didn't have to worry so much about hurting Tony or anyone who was in the upper levels of the Tower.
After selecting the his lab's floor from the screen in the panel next to the doors, Bruce leaned against the back wall of the elevator and crossed his arms, his thoughts drifting to the female mutant. Piper, he knew, would eventually show up in the lab when she grew bored of whatever she was doing. He frowned slightly as a thought occurred to him then he sighed.
"Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir?" The AI answered formally. Despite Tony being in Malibu, Jarvis still ran the tower and was still available for the occupants, mainly Bruce and Piper, to use.
"Where's Piper?"
Jarvis was quiet for a moment as he accessed the buildings sensory files, searching for the specific life signs of Agent Lennart. His slightly computerized British voice spoke crisply when he found her, "Agent Lennart is currently in Mr. Stark's private work out room in the level above his lab. She appears to be taking out her aggression on the exercise equipment." The AI paused and when he spoke again, Bruce could swear he detected sardonic amusement in his voice, "It would appear that I will have to inform Mr. Stark that he will need a new bench press..."
Bruce sighed again, rubbing his forehead as he stepped out of the elevator when it reached his lab's floor. "Thanks Jarvis."
"You're quite welcome, sir. Have a good day."
The scientist hummed lightly in acknowledgement and keyed in his code for his lab, stepping inside when the glass door slid open. Taking his glasses from his shirt pocket, he slipped them on and crossed the room to his main computer terminal. He still had a lot of work to do when it came to isolating the healing factor in Piper's genes and he wanted to get started on it.
He'd go up to check on Piper in a little while. Maybe.
During the reconstruction of Stark Tower, Tony had decided to build a gym, since he was planning on, eventually, having all the other Avengers move into the building and all of them were a very athletic bunch. While the private apartments were located at the top of the Tower, along with his own private lab, the gym had once been the floor beneath the ground level and beneath that was the Hulk Room, connected to lab he'd made specifically for Bruce to use when he wasn't in Tony's private lab near the top. The gym took up the entire floor, with only short walls to section off the individual areas, such as a boxing ring, sparring mats, excercise equipment like bench presses and the like. There was even a section for someone to practice archery at one end and a raised platform suspended from the ceiling near the middle of the massive room.
It was this room that Piper stormed into, growling and spitting curses like a pissed off cat. Intermittently, her slitted eyes would flicker from gray to red then back again as her anger burned like fire in her veins. Immediately she stormed over to the large punching bag set up in a section that had been made to look like an old-fashioned boxing gym. She ripped her tank top over her head and tossed it aside, leaving her in the plain black sports bra that she almost always wore instead of a regular bra.
Her first punch sent the heavy duty bag swinging violently.
"Stupid Fury and his stupid fucking bullshit treatment." The female mutant snarled, her fists slamming into the punching repetitively as she growled under her breath. "I'm not a damn child he can ground or a fucking dog he can put in a kennel whenever it wants?!"
With a furious scream, Piper stopped hitting the bag and grabbed it as it swung back towards her then she ripped it off it's hook and flung it across the room. Immense satisfaction flooded her when it crashed into into the leg press machine with enough force to topple it over. Without even thinking it through, she stormed over to the rest of the exercise equipment, grabbing the several of the weights for the bench press and fling them around.
Almost systematically, she tore through the equipment, if not outright breaking it then picking it up and throwing it against a wall to get the job down.
She stopped after awhile and, breathing heavily, called out through her pants. "Jarvis?"
"Yes, Agent Lennart?"
"Play me some music."
In response a steady beat began thumping out of the ceiling and Piper closed her eyes for a moment before letting herself go just a little bit. She'd give Tony an insincere apology late about destroying his stuff and even tell him to bill SHIELD, because it was technically their fault for infuriating her in the first place. That should make up for any damages.
Bruce had been steadily working on Piper's blood when his computer chimed, Tony's face and upper body appearing a second later on the holographic screen. He appeared to be working on an arm piece of his suit, his eyes focused on his left hand as he held a screwdriver in his right.
"Hey, what's this about me needing a new bench press?"
Bruce chuckled awkwardly, leaning back in his chair and removing his glasses as he commented drily, "Nice to see you too, Tony."
"Yeah, yeah. Great to see you, Big Guy. Now what's wrong with my bench press?"
"I, uh, don't really know." Bruce replied with an uncomfortable shrug. He fiddled with his glasses and cleared his throat, "Jarvis just said that Piper was taking out some aggression on the exercise equipment."
On the screen Tony stopped working on the hand repulsor to frown at Bruce. Bruce watched quietly as the billionaire fiddled with something on his side of the screen, his brows lifting when Tony's image shrunk to fit half the screen as another one was pulled up. The scientist wasn't sure how he felt about Tony being able to control his computer from halfway across the continent, but he decided not to mention it at the moment. It would only make Tony feel smug.
The second image was dark for second then it flickered and brightened, revealing a large room with no windows, but plenty of artificial light. Bruce noticed various exercise equipment, most bent and misshapen strewn about the room. He jumped slightly when what looked like a punching bag flew across the screen, Piper stalking into view a few seconds later. She'd discarded her shirt, leaving her in only her black sports-bra and shorts, her hair surrounding her in a wild mane of tangles.
Even though there wasn't any sound, Bruce still cringed as he watched Piper heft up a heavy looking weight and fling towards the wall, the metal disk protruding from the concrete several feet above the ground. He'd always known Piper was stronger than an average human, but he'd never truly realized just how strong the feral mutant was until that moment.
"Well shit." Tony muttered, leaning back in his own chair and rubbing at his upper lip with a hand as he stared slightly off to the side, most likely looking at the video "What exactly happened to piss Whiskers off?"
"Fury has her on house arrest." Bruce replied distractedly, gaze still riveted to the live feed of Piper further rampaging through the gym. Watching her rage across the screen, throwing and smashing various pieces of equipment, he was almost reminded of a child through a temper tantrum. A very strong child who could lift a hundred pound weight bars and throw them like they were Frisbees, but a child nonetheless.
Bruce leaned forward and frowned at the screen, observing as she stopped long enough to pick up said hundred pound weight bar and inspect it before using it break other equipment. It was extremely calculated, the way she went about using the weight bar to destroy as a way to break the rest of the equipment. This systematic destruction disproved his thought on Piper acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum. When children were upset enough to break things, it was with reckless abandon, almost no thought to it.
What Piper was currently doing was the complete opposite. She was calculating the best way to achieve the most damage and make the biggest mess possible. The back of his neck itched, and Bruce absently scratched at it, to strangely enthralled with watching Piper's rampage to even really recognize one of the early signs of the Other Guy possibly making an appearance.
"Hey! Bruce!"
Bruce jumped and jerked his eyes away from the live-feed of the gym to stare at Tony with slightly wide eyes, his face flushing when he saw the annoyed and vaguely intrigued look the billionaire was giving him.
"Dude, I've been calling you for like five minutes. Does watching Pippi get her rage on get you all hot and bothered or something?"
"W-what?" Bruce stammered, looking anywhere but at Tony, as he busied himself with minimizing the camera-feed. He cleared his throat and forced the blush to leave his face. "I-uh, just, um, doing something..."
"Riiight." Tony drawled with a smirk, but he let the matter go for the moment with a dismissive wave of his hand, "Whatever, I'll deal with that later. Right now, you need to deal with her."
"What? Y-you're joking, right?" Bruce gaped at Tony in disbelief, but the billionaire just gave him a look that clearly said that he was not joking. Flustered and visibly apprehensive, Bruce fiddled with his glasses and shook his head in denial, "Tony, that's not-not a good idea. She'll calm down eventually."
"Yeah at the expense of all my stuff. C'mon Mellow Jazz, you're supposed to be the Zen Master," Tony made a shooing motion with his hands and smirked, "Go get your Zen on with Pippi the Pissed Off Pussy."
Bruce made a strangled sound and closed his eyes, still shaking his head furiously, "Tony..."
"C'mon man! It shouldn't be that hard. It already looks like she's calming down a bit, you just need to, y'know hurry up the process!"
The scientist opened his eyes, ready to keep spilling objections and reasons why him going up to the gym while Piper was acting so aggressively was not a good idea, but Tony just smirked at him before his image winked out of existence. In fact, his entire computer went dark, green words appearing on the screen in big, bold letters.
You're access to all computers in the building have been temporarily terminated until you rescue my stuff from the Big Bad Aristocat. Chop, chop, Brucey-boy.
-T.S.
Closing his eyes, Bruce gripped the edge of his desk and took several deep breaths in order to curb both his irritation with Tony and the apprehension he felt about approaching Piper right then. Still taking deep, relaxing breaths, he stood up and exited the lab. Before he went to the elevator, he walked to the opposite end of the hall, where a large, metal door was.
He pressed his hand against a black panel beside the door, a blue light flaring up from it and scanning his palm. There was a pneumatic hiss, followed by several clicks and whirls as the door unlocked then slid open, revealing a dark room. Pressing a few keys on the pad to keep the doors open, Bruce headed back down the hall to the elevator.
He wanted the Hulk Room ready just in case.
But I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down
Your words in my head, knives in my heart
You build me up and then I fall apart
'Cause I'm only human
Bruce paused in surprise when he stepped into the gym, the song blaring from the speakers in the ceiling catching him by surprise. The video feed he and Tony had watched hadn't had any sound, so Bruce hadn't realized Piper had been playing music while she'd been wreaking havoc on innocent exercise equipment.
Speaking of which, the scientist took a tentative step into the room and looked around, wincing when he saw all the various pieces of twisted metal, foam, fabric, plastic, and concrete littering the large room. Piper really had done a number on the room, none of the various sections had been left spared, except for maybe the platform in the middle of the room, which was intact except for bits of wreckage hanging off of it.
And in the middle of the it all, Piper stood with her back to him, blood dripping from her clenched fists.
Bruce took another step into the room, carefully stepping over what had once been part of the boxing ring and called out her name warily, "Piper?"
She twitched slightly, her shoulders tensing and lifting up like hackles.
"Piper?"
Bruce. Piper felt her shoulders tense and she bit back a hiss. Bruce shouldn't, couldn't, be here. Not with her.
There were two things Piper usually did was she was pissed off; kill whatever pissed her off with much bloodshed and destroyed everything until she tired herself out or, if that wasn't possible, she relieved her frustration in less violent, but way more carnal manner. And since she wasn't allowed to kill anything, she just went straight to rampaging and destroying things.
But now Bruce was in the room with her and everything in the gym was thoroughly destroyed.
She heard the bottom of his shoes scrap against the ground, the sound loud in her oversensitive ears even over the music still pounding from the speakers, and she twitched, fingers flexing into tighter fists at her sides. Her claws cut into the soft flesh of her palm and more blood oozed from between her fingers.
"Piper." His voice was closer now, soft and gentle with understanding and patience. She heard him move closer and she growled lowly in warning; if he didn't leave, she was going to jump him and she was coherent enough to know that would not be a good thing. Catastrophic would be an understatement...so would amazingly fun, but Piper tried not to think about that.
When she'd growled, Bruce had stopped his approaching, leaving only two or so feet of space and wreckage between them. He swallowed thickly and tried to keep his breathing and heart rate under control. His palms felt sweaty and heat skittered up and down his spine as the Other Guy reacted to his stress, growling and working to get free. Bruce pushed him and concentrated on calming Piper down, like she had down for him back in Bryant Park.
"It's alright," He told her gently, keeping his voice low and soothing, while remaining where he was. "Just take a-a deep breath and close your eyes..." He cleared his throat quietly and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to ignore the way his skin itched and the Other Guy screaming at the back of his mind. "And count to, um, ten. Everything will be alright, if you just keep taking deep breaths."
He could tell she was listening to him when she turned her head slightly towards him and canted it to the side. He watched warily as her shoulders rose with each breath she took and he calmed marginally.
"That's it." Bruce murmured, taking a cautious step forward.
She frozen and Bruce only that second of warning, before she was suddenly in front of him, her face inches from his own. His breath caught in his throat for a moment and he swallowed harshly, trying to breath around the knot that had formed in his throat as he stared into her predatory gray eyes.
Heat that had nothing to do with the Other Guy wanting to make an appearance shot through Bruce, settling low in his abdomen as they continued to stare at each other. She was so close to him, he could see tiny flecks of blue in her gray eyes. He could feel the gentle caress of her breath against his face, mingling with his own shallow breathes, and he absently noted that she smelled like cinnamon and the forest.
Piper canted her head slightly, her lips parting further and her nostrils flaring as she inhaled deeply. Bruce swallowed heavily, heat scorching up his neck to his face before going back down his spine as he watched her slit pupils dilate until they nearly eclipsed the gray of her irises.
Bruce felt his pulse spike, his alarm going off loudly in the tense silence, and he made to take a step back from her. He had taken his off of her, so wasn't expecting it and she moved quick as a striking snake, but suddenly Piper had closed the distance between them, her lean body pressing against his own as her lips covered his, her hands clutching at his shoulders.
He stood stock still, uncomprehending as his heart hammered against his chest and heat surged through his veins. Piper nipped his bottom lip then licked it and a groan forced it's way past the lump in Bruce's throat as he finally reacted, his hands coming up to grasp her hips tightly, whether to push her away or pull her closer, he wasn't sure. At least not until he started kissing her back.
His alarm was still going off loudly and Piper growled against his mouth, sliding her right hand down his left arm to his wrist and squeezing slightly. There was a crunch sound and the alarm abruptly cut off.
The sound brought Bruce back to himself and he shoved himself away from Piper with a gasp, stumbling away from her as his pulse continued to sky rocket, the Other Guy slamming around inside his mind. He doubled over, clenching his eyes shut as he tried to regain control of himself. In front of him, Piper whined and stepped closer to him, but Bruce threw up his hand and shouted.
"No! Stay-stay back!"
Piper recoiled as if she'd been struck, blinking rapidly in confusion, and if he had seen her face, Bruce would have said she looked hurt. But he didn't see her face, couldn't bring himself to look at her as he lurched out of the gym towards the elevator, barely holding onto himself by the skin of his teeth. He stumbled and his shoulder slammed into the elevator door, grunting with pain as he frantically pushed the call button.
Regret, something Piper hadn't felt for decades, hit Piper when she heard the pained sounds Bruce was making outside of the gym. Shaking herself, she speed-walked out of the large room just as the elevator doors were sliding shut, with Bruce inside.
"Bruce!" Piper shouted and her eyes widened when she saw him crouching in the middle of the lift, his skin already turning green as his muscles swelled and strained against his blue Oxford shirt, just before the elevators doors closed completely and blocked her view. "Aw shit!"
She continued to curse colorfully as she ran towards the elevator and began prying the doors open with a grunt of exertion. The floor where the Hulk Room was located couldn't be accessed by the emergency stairwell that connected the rest of the building, because Tony had thought it would be a good idea to limit as much access to Bruce's lab and the Hulk Room as possible. Piper was not thanking him for that decision as she finally pried open the elevator doors enough to slip through.
She didn't bother grabbing the suspension cables that moved the elevator as she jumped down shaft. It wasn't that far of a drop and she was durable enough that she wouldn't break anything if she landed. Besides, getting to Bruce was more important than any possible injuries she sustained. In this instance, Piper figured rather ruefully, she would deserve anything she got for instigating a incident.
If, more like when, Fury found out, she was going to be in a pile of shit so deep she'd never see the sun.
Bruce staggered out of the elevator when it reached his lab's floor, grunting and groaning as he forced himself to blunder blindly down the hall to the already open door of the Hulk Room. The lights flickering on when they detected his entrance as he made it into the room just as his legs out, collapsing onto his hands and knees.
He tried to fight it, he really did, but it was already too late, his pulse was too high and he couldn't hold the change back. He flung himself up off his hands with a roar of anger and pain as he arched his back, his shirt ripping as his muscles roiled and enlarged further.
Lost in the change he didn't notice Piper slip through the heavily enforced metal door just before it slammed shut and locked them inside the even more heavily enforced room. Backing quickly into a corner, Piper crouched down and watched with morbid fascination as Bruce continued to shift. She hadn't been conscious, or even alive, to see him shift on the Helicarrier. In fact, the only time she'd seen him change into Hulk had been shortly after they had arrived in New York, just in time for Tony to lead a flying alien leviathan towards them. That shift had been seamless and, almost beautiful, but this, what was happening now, was agonizing to witness. Even for Piper, who had seem a lot of terrible things in her life.
A green behemoth lurched to his feet where Bruce, sweet, awkward, and nervous Bruce, once kneeled. Hulk stumbled forward a few steps and shook his head, his shoulders heaving as he breathed harshly in the silent room.
Slowly and without taking her eyes off the green behemoth's broad back, Piper straightened from her crouch and licked her lips. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, but not with fear, definitely not fear. This was the first time she'd ever seen the Hulk without Sekhmet, her other self, clouding her mind. In fact, Sekhmet had only stirred the slightest bit since she started her rampage, seemingly not sharing in her smaller self's anger at being treated like a naughty child or pet. Even now the beast inside Piper appeared content to let her deal with the green rage monster. No, it definitely wasn't fear causing Piper's heart to beat a tattoo against her ribs as she stared at Hulk's muscular back, it was nearly maniacal glee.
She licked her lips again and stepped forward, her bare feet only making a whisper of noise. Her breath hitched when Hulk tensed and looked over his shoulder, furious green eyes meeting wide gray. He whirled around with a thunderous roar and charged towards her, swiping her up in a meaty hand and slamming her against the wall of the room.
Piper grunted and shook her head, blinking the black dots away from her vision before focusing on Hulk's snarling face. She smiled pleasantly at him and cooed, "Well, hello there, handsome."
Author's Note: Holy crap, this chapter, I'm not even sure how I feel about this chapter. Like the last one, a (large) part of me loves it, but another, much smaller part is bugged by something about it. Buuuut as long as you guys enjoyed it then I'm okay. Now before I actually get to the good part of this AN, I'd just like to take a moment to freak the frack out because OHMIGAWD I MADE THEM KISS! dfjsdhfskjdhfkdjfg -screams into a pillow then falls over-
I'm not sure if you guys think it's too soon and if you do, I just want to clarify that this DOES NOT make them a couple(yet). Before she was imprisoned, Piper had two ways to deal with pent up aggression; 1) Kill and destroy shit or 2) Have crazy wild sex with anyone who could actually handle her without dying. Since she's not allowed to kill anyone and she had already seriously fracked up the Avengers gym, and well, Bruce kinda, unintentionally served himself up to her on a silver platter, so her only choice was option 2. My only possible problem is if he was out of character by kissing her back. Personally, I don't think so, because he already felt a (very, though he'd deny it) strong sexual attraction to Piper and I'm of the opinion that because of Hulk, Bruce's base/primal instict is a little closer to the surface than a normal person's (kinda like Piper).
So if some of you don't like the kiss, I would apologize, but honestly, I'm not that sorry because it just makes me squeal and clap like a retarded seal.
Anyhooties, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, even though it's a wee bit shorter than I would like it to be. I'll try to make the next one longer, since we're gonna get some Piper/Hulk interaction as well as some Sekhmet/Hulk interaction as well! So stay tuned!
PS - Also forgive any mistakes, it's 1 AM and I was too excited to give the chapter a really thorough check through. Let me know about any mistakes you catch either in a review or a PM and I'll try to fix them ASAP!
PSS - Oh my gosh guys, I had this amazing idea the other day while playing Tetris and daydream. What if I wrote an AU story of this one where Piper was never taken by Styker and experimented on, but actually had a semi-normal life (she's a mutant with a physical mutant, so it's not gonna be all peaches and cream), but she ends up meeting Bruce after he has an incident that causes him to end up in the woods near her house and she takes him in after he goes back to being a little guy? Also, it would eventually carry into Avengers and the rest like this one, but the process would be totally different. What do you think? I already have an outline, I just want to know if you guys would be interested in something like that?
SPECIAL THANKS to everyone that faved, alerted, and/or reviewed! You guys are awesome! Keep up the love and I will try to shower you all with updates and adoration!
REVIEW REPLIES (I think I'm just gonna start calling this RR)
Molly Grace 16: Thank you! Hope you like this chapter too!
The Rainbow Devowerer: Haha, I originally wasn't going to include a little post-script or even the AN at the top of the last chapter about the title just being a title because I wanted to see what type of reactions I would get XD Anyhooties, here is some Hulk, just for you! Sorry there's not more of him in this chapter, but he will star for a good portion of the next one! And as for your guesses, you would be correctamundo! Betty and her evil bastard of a father will be making their debut in the upcoming chapters, so here's your virtual cookies! You get two for getting both guesses.
Now as for a fight between Tigra and Piper? That's tough to answer, I'd say against Piper if she'd never been experimented on, it would be an even match up between them. They both have very similar abilities, with the only exception probably being Piper's superior healing factor. But against with completely bat-shit psychopathic sociopath Piper who's been tortured for the sake of "science and the good of mankind", I don't think Tigra would stand much of a chance. Piper would, literally (at least if Bruce, Clint, Natasha, of Fury didn't stop her), eat Tigra alive. But that's just my opinion. Who do you think would win?
GiraffePanda2: I'm so happy you liked the last chapter! Haha, sorry about dashing your hopes, but I hope I made up for it with the kiss in this one!
Anon Guest: Yuppers! A.I.M. is going to be playing a rather big role in upcoming chapters, as will another evil organization and a certain douche-nozzle military man.
Iveya Jade's psycho mind 08: Thanks! There was a little kiss in this chapter, but I'm not sure if it relieved the frustration or made it worse. Anyhooties, hope you liked this chapter!
Kit-cat99: Haha, I think a lot of people did, which was why I made that the title. Ehehe, I have some ideas for when Bruce and Piper finally, ahem, consumate their relationship, and I honestly don't know if I will be able to actually write them without dying of laughter or embarrassment XD Anyhooties, I hope you liked this chapter!
Rukoitalian65: Ehehe, yeah, you're probably right about that! Anyhooties, I hope you like this chapter!
CMW2: Aw thank you! I'm glad you think the story is awesome and that you like Piper! Her original version will always hold a special place in my heart since she was my first sociopathic character that I'd ever created, but I'm so glad that I've refined her the way I have. Honestly, before I can even think of taking this story into GotG, I'll have to work with Avengers 2: Age of Ultron and the rest of Phase 3 movies that take place on Earth and maybe Asgard. Plus I have to actually go see Guardians of the Galaxy before I can think of ways to integrate it into the story, but it is definitely in the realm of possibility, it'll just be a while. Anyhooties, I hope you like this chapter!