What Would You Know About Rage?

Melinda May/Bruce Banner

GammaCav? BannerMay?

This could be a sequel to Jemma/Clint, or Skye/Steve, or even the Fitz/Tony platonic, take your pick. In any case, Coulson's team are welcome at Avengers Tower and regularly go there, which is where this story begins.

Theme song:

Fleetwood Mac – Landslide

She started awake, taking slow deep breaths as awareness returned. Tightening her fists on the edge of the sheet covering her body.

Every night, it was the same dream. The Berserker Staff, the way it had felt in her hands, so right, so perfect. The only outlet she'd ever had for the rage that had fuelled her for so long. She'd caught herself planning, many times, to go back to Cuba and dig it out of the wreckage she'd created when she smashed HYDRA's barbershop base down there. Several times, she'd tried to mention it to Thor, tell him that he should go get it and take it safely back to Asgard. But each time she did, the words seemed to freeze in her throat. If she told Thor, the Staff would be forever out of her reach.

She rose silently from her bed, dressed in her workout clothes and went down to the magnificently appointed gym all of the team had been invited to use. It was before dawn and the huge room – a whole floor of the Tower – should be deserted. It usually was at this time, she'd found.

Instead, there was a man there. Above average height, solidly built, fluffy dark hair shading to salt-and-pepper at the temples. He was wearing only loose judo pants and Melinda took a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of a very pleasantly muscled chest, thickly furred with dark hair. She was a woman, after all. Though, her taste lately had seemed to be lacking. She grimaced slightly at the thought of Ward.

The man was moving slowly, surely, through T'ai Ch'i poses. His form was excellent, Melinda thought critically. In more ways than one.

A faint smile touched her lips, and she moved silently to another mat, some distance from the man, and began her own slow dance, feeling the stretch and pull in her muscles as she steadily warmed them up.

For almost an hour they worked out, neither speaking, though once when their eyes met the man gave her a small nod and an even smaller smile. Melinda inclined her head very slightly in acknowledgement.

He finished first – which was only reasonable, since he had started first – gathered a towel which had been draped over one of the exercise machines and slung it around his shoulders, moving towards the fancy water filter in one corner of the room and pouring himself a glass.

From the corner of his eyes, Bruce saw the beautiful Asian woman finish and step lightly off the mats. Courteously, he poured her a glass of water and, as she approached, turned and held it out.

He'd intended to introduce himself. But something about her face, so calm and truly serene now, unlike the seething rage she'd been poorly masking when she came into the gym, made him say instead;

"It's good for calming the rage, isn't it?"

She'd been in the very act of accepting the glass from his hand. It slipped, but he tightened his hand just in time to stop it falling. Black eyes glittered as she snapped;

"What would you know about rage?"

The glass hit the floor and shattered. Neither of them noticed the shards and water splashes that sprinkled across their bare feet. They just stood staring at each other incredulously, until Bruce managed to gather himself.

"More than I ever wanted to," he muttered. The Other Guy was unbelievably silent in the back of his head, but Bruce could feel him watching. Feel his fascination, his recognition, that here was rage that matched his own. "I'm Bruce Banner."

He knew who she was, though her name momentarily escaped him. He might have only returned to the Tower from a sojourn in India late last night, but JARVIS had quickly briefed him on events since he was last there, and flashed up images of Coulson's team, in case he ran across one of them in the common areas and was surprised. So it stood to reason that she'd recognise his name. He half expected her to run screaming, poor woman; what a nightmare to find that your soulmate was as dreadfully cursed as he was.

Instead she only lifted one dark eyebrow and said "Ah. Well, that explains quite a lot."

"It does?"

She gave him an enigmatic smile, scanning over his bare chest. "Where are the words?"

He touched his hip. "I'd offer to show you, but…"

The smile grew more genuine. "Perhaps later." She twisted side-on to him and pulled up her top, showing his cramped handwriting along her ribs on her left side. A sudden urge to lick her smooth golden skin startled him, made him step back with a crunch of glass.

"Owww!"

"Don't move!" she glanced around, reached out and grabbed the towel from around his neck, spread it across the shards of glass so they could walk away. She made him sit down on the mat she'd just been using, carefully picked out the one shard of glass that had lodged in his foot, watched with an impressed look as his skin healed almost as quickly as Steve's would have done.

"Well," Melinda met her soulmate's dark brown eyes, "now what?"

"I guess we get to know each other," his smile was rather bashful. "Won't you please tell me your name?"

Three weeks later

"COME, MY ANGRY LADY!" Hulk boomed, holding out a massive hand to Melinda as she stepped out of the SUV and ran to his side, the Berserker Staff in her hands, hers by right now, given by Thor's own hand. "LET US GO SMASH!"

Her grin was vicious. "Let's!"

939 words.

I couldn't write this partnership without addressing the inner rage thing. They'd be the perfect pair of rage monsters together.

I'm still looking for people to write continuances. If doesn't have to be a 50,000 word epic, just a single follow-up scene would be good, if you have one in mind!

The Poll has been reuploaded for the third (and probably final) time. Go to my profile to vote, you're getting 10 this time around, and YES, I am being a little bit more flexible with possible pairings, so if you don't see one you want, ASK. That said it still needs to fit into MCU canon. So NO, I'm not going to write SkyeWard, or Skimmons, or anything like that. They need to be people who HAVEN'T met on-screen, or if they have, the story doesn't contradict it (so Clintasha is probably OK, but I'm writing them only in triads/quartets). With the possible exception of Phil Coulson, who died and might have come back with new soulmarks...