Chapter 11 – Christmas Eve Hulk and Seek

Bucky is more aware of the person walking next to him than he is of where Hulk might be. And considering one is walking almost silently, and the other is a giant making more noise than Tony and Peter left unsupervised in the lab, that's quite impressive.

'Not like you to be so jumpy when on a hunt,' they quip from next to him.

He sighs. Looks like they're having this conversation now. He stops and lets them walk on a couple of paces. 'I remember, Nat.'

Natasha turns, frowning in confusion. 'What are you talking about?'

'The Red Room,' he sees her freeze, the mask slamming down on her mask quicker than he can blink, 'I remember the Red Room. I remember training you. I remember-'

'Stop,' she cuts him off, voice hard.

'I must have forgotten when they wiped me later on. Loki thinks the memories are coming back because my mind's been healing more. There's probably loads more I'm going to remember in the future, but…recently I've been remembering meeting you. For the first time.'

'Stop it,' she repeats, voice quavering a little.

'Nat-'

'Please, just stop. I don't….I can't remember that time, it's…it's not who I am now. Nothing that happened there was good, except that it gave me the skills that makes me useful to the team.'

Ouch. 'Nat-'

'No, Barnes,' she snaps, turning to look away from him, 'we've got to find Hulk and then we can get back to celebrating Christmas. And we are never-'

He cuts her off by grabbing her and pinning her against a tree. 'Thought I taught you never to turn your back on someone unless they were dead, Natalia,' he growls into her ear.

'Let go,' she struggles but can't break the grip of the metal hand gripping her.

'Nat I need to know-' he cuts off with a groan of pain as she knees him in the groin and he lets her go, sinking to his knees.

'You taught me that,' she snaps at him, stepping over him and continuing along the path.

'Good to know you remembered something,' he counters, blinking through the tears. 'They took me away from you,' he tells her, and sees her stop, 'because they had to wipe me too much when I was with you. You made me too human.'

There's a few moments of quiet, before her strained voice carries back to him. 'Hurry up, Barnes, we need to find Hulk.'

Well that could have gone better, he scolds himself. He feels Loki's presence pushing at the corner of his mind, but ignores it and stumbles to his feet and follows Natasha. How do you always manage to screw this up, Barnes?

'Why are we not just letting the monster tire himself out and return to normal by himself?' Nebula questions as they walk through the forest.

'No idea,' Valkyrie sighs, 'I don't really know what all the fuss is about, to be honest. He's never been that bad ever since I've known him.'

Nebula opens her mouth to speak again, but closes it with a frown and Valkyrie hears the commotion that has drawn her attention. 'I think we may be about to find out why,' she sighs and the two women start to run towards the noise.

It's only as they clear the tree line that Valkyrie realises they've circled back around to the, now demolished, obstacle course. Hulk is standing in the middle of the wreckage, fighting against the magical ropes that Strange is using to try and stop his flailing, and the webs Peter is using to help him with. Unfortunately the teenagers webs, whilst strong enough to withstand most things, are unable to stand up to the raw strength of Hulk.

'Come on Big Green,' Tony's hovering in front of him, and trying to dodge flying debris, 'we never said you couldn't join in, we just didn't know if you'd want to come out or not.'

Hulk roars in response and nearly smacks Tony out of the air. 'Hulk want flag!'

Peter shouts out in alarm as the web he's holding gets flung by Hulk, sending him sailing through the air to land at their feet. 'Ouch, that's going to bruise.'

'Hey! You giant blob of- don't hit my when I'm insulting you!' Wade shouts. 'No one throws my Baby Boy and- STOP INTERRUPTING ME!'

Valkyrie tries to hold back her laughter, and only lets a snort of amusements escape before trying to get rid of the smile on her face as Peter frowns up at her. 'Thanks. I just got rid of the last lot of bruises!'

Valkyrie laughs, grabbing hold of the youngster's shoulder and dragging him up to his feet. 'Oh stop whining. You guys are just handling him the wrong way.'

'Well Tony already tried talking him down and got smacked with a log. So if you think you can do better be my guest,' he grumbles.

She looks over at Nebula. 'Think you can watch the kid while I sort out Hulk?'

'Shouldn't be too hard,' there's a ghost of a smile on her face as she replies.

Valkyrie salutes her then starts jogging over towards the commotion. 'Hey Big Guy!' she calls out, taking a running leap up and off one of the broken logs and onto Hulk's back, hugging him round the neck, letting herself hang limply down his back.

'Who there?' Hulk roars.

'Aww don't tell me you've forgotten me already,' she teases him. 'What's up Big Guy you wanted to join in the game?'

'Hulk want flags!' he roars in agreement.

'Well you've already got one there,' she tells him, watching as he sends Tony flying by swatting him with the flag as if he's a giant bug. It's only Rhodes managing to catch him that stops him ending the same way as Peter.

'Hulk want other flag! Hulk win game!'

'Oh is that all?' she laughs. 'Well how about you just give us a minute and we'll get the other flag out here?' She gives Tony a pointed look over Hulk's shoulder which, thankfully, he seems to understand and talks into the comms.

'Hulk win game!'

'Sure you will Big Guy, but you got to get it off me first!' she laughs, letting go and falling down his back, landing nimbly on her feet and racing off towards the facility where, a few moments later she sees Loki appear carrying the second flag. He teleports next to her, handing it over, before disappearing again with a quick 'good luck'. One day she's going to have to hear the story about why he's so nervous around Hulk.

She turns to face the approach giant, holding the flag up and waving it at him. 'Come on Big Guy! Come and get it!'

'Valkyrie are you insane?' Steve asks as he appears out of the tree line.

She's too busy trying to stay ahead of Hulk, though, to answer him, as she steers him back towards the demolished obstacle course. 'You're too slow!' she teases him.

'Hulk get flag!' he roars, jumping over her to land in front and then snatching the flag from her, nearly sending her sprawling from the force of it. 'Hulk wins!'

'Well done Big Guy,' she laughs, patting him on the shoulder. 'You did good.'

'Hulk sleepy,' he yawns and starts to shrink in size.

Tony hurries over to join them, his Iron Man suit falling away so he can shrug his jacket off and put it around his friend's now shivering form. 'Hey Brucie Bear.'

'Tony? Oh god did I-?'

'You did nothing,' he reassures him, 'now lets get you inside so you can sleep it off, yeah?'

'Sounds good,' Bruce agrees with a smile, letting the inventor pull him up and help him back towards the compound.

'So,' Wade says, breaking the silence, 'I take it Hulk wins?'

To her surprise it's Steve that laughs first. 'Let's go get everyone and get started on the mistletoe challenge shall we?'

'Mistletoe!' Wade shouts excitedly, before running off, grabbing Peter's hand and dragging him towards the forest. 'We'll go get everyone Cap-e-tan!'

'Couldn't we have just used FRIDAY?' Strange asks as he joins them.

'Yes,' Steve sighs, then heaves a laugh. 'But they've had so little time to themselves recently I can't blame Wade for wanting to drag Peter off for some one-on-one time. Come on, let's get the cocoa heating ready for when everyone gets back.'