A/N - I don't own the Incredible Hulk TV series.
Please let me know what you think.
Enough of being Accused.
The moment he found himself in an alleyway, shivering slightly from the chill of the dawn with his shirt gone and barefoot, David looked around disorientated while he tried reflexively to remember what had happened during his time as the Creature; his ability to recall things was always hard unless he really strained himself, but most of the time it was a blank.
And then he remembered. David had only bothered coming to this town to merely use the library resources available to discover more on the latest research into gamma radiation so he could look for new clues in curing himself after his impulsive gamma injection which had ruined his life in ways that the loss of Laura had never caused. When a psychopath had gone around attacking blonde women, David had decided to keep out of it although he would intervene if he needed to.
He might be on the run, but he was still a doctor and he did care, very much. And the idea of young girls being brutally murdered by some animal was horrific. All of them were young, beautiful, blondes who had had their whole lives ahead of them. When they were found, the girl's faces were covered by a Deathmask.
David grimaced as he thought about the way the so-called Male Student Alliance had begun suspecting him of being the killer. He hadn't thought much of the so-called Alliance; to him, they were the embodiment of too many young guys loaded down with too many hormones. What made it worse was they weren't exactly effective; a few girls had still been murdered on the campus, so what use were they?
David had opted to stay clear of them. Within a few days of their formation, the Alliance had begun harassing more people on campus, suspecting them of being Deathmask even though they didn't have a shred of proof. And then they had focused on him. He didn't know why they had focused on him at all, but it had started after he had found Joan distraught at the death of that young kid and they had confronted him in the library. David supposed he should have been lucky Chief Rhodes had wanted to question him to stop the idiots from making a mess of things. Unfortunately, David had realised he would need to leave the town and go off on his way. It was a cowardly approach, but the last thing the town needed was the Creature to appear and make things worse.
Unfortunately, it had happened.
David had befriended two women in the town, Miriam and Joan. According to Rhodes, Joan was in love with him. Sadly David couldn't reciprocate even though he was attracted to the blonde woman who was so brave. She had admitted to him she had been raped, and it was one of the core reasons why she had set up a self-defence class which had proven popular since many girls on the campus and around the town were terrified they would become victims themselves. Miriam was another woman who'd become attracted to him; he could tell, but while he liked the two, his lifestyle and how he was forced to continually move from place to place to avoid McGee, made the prospect of a romantic life almost impossible. It was sad but it was a fact of his life.
When he had left the library with Miriam, the girl had kissed him. And she had been attacked. David had tried to interfere, but the killer had managed to throw him off the car, and he had transformed into the Creature. In the morning, David had been arrested and hauled through the streets as the townspeople turned into an angry mob just as they found him trying to pack up and get ready to leave; with how volatile the town had become and how suspicious the Male Student Alliance was of him, and how the chief of the police was already pointing the finger towards him, wasn't it logical for him to decide to leave?
Unfortunately, for the police that only solidified his guilt. David learnt Miriam had been knocked out in the struggle - once again, he cursed the fact his conscious mind just…stopped whenever he transformed into the Hulk, and he didn't remember anything never mind control the Creature - and she had called his name in a delirious state. Anyone with objectivity would realise Miriam was delirious and realise he had been there, and helping her. Unfortunately with the town in such a state, it didn't surprise him they'd jumped to the conclusion they had. Miriam had been under heavy sedation to make matters worse, so she couldn't give her own side of the story.
Which was what Rhodes wanted.
David was uncertain when it had happened, but when Rhodes had questioned him with the publicity-hungry mayor hanging around, waiting for an opportunity to seize some sort of credit for catching the killer, he had changed. He had started speaking of himself in the third person, although he had spoken of himself as if he were someone else.
Suddenly Rhodes - Deathmask - began speaking in a hateful manner of women, blondes, as if they were responsible for everything wrong in his own life so he had begun simply killing them off. David had tried to record a confession, but he was caught out when the stupid tape ran out and the recorder clicked to a halt.
Rhodes had lost his mind, ignoring the mob outside who had had enough of pandering to the mayor and had decided to take the law into their own hands by killing him. Rhodes had left the station in a daze, and he had decided to go after Joan; in Rhode's shattered mind Joan had been teaching girls and young women self-defence and that wasn't on, but the fact she had fallen in love with him was even worse. David had tried to stop him even when he was handcuffed in the room and left to the mercy of the mob.
When they had pummelled him in that corner, David had been furious and frustrated as well as terrified for his own life and also that of Joan who was being threatened in such a grisly way. His emotions had been bubbling over and it was. David usually tried to keep a lid on his emotions so he didn't change, but in rare moments he allowed and even welcomed the transformation. This had been one of those moments. He was furious with the town for jumping to the wrong conclusions, he was angry with the Male Student Alliance and their stupidity in pointing the finger his way and Rhode's own attempt to question him at the library, his fear for what had happened to Miriam, the stupidity of the mayor and the police for not bothering to investigate the murders properly, his anger at being beaten up by a bunch of vigilantes. Lastly, he thought of Joan and the fear he had she would die, and he had transformed into the Creature. It was rare for him to welcome a transformation, welcome the disorientation and the fear of what he had done in a transformed state, but if it saved someone he cared about…
David sighed and he stood up.
He needed to get out of the town, he was just lucky that daybreak had only just dawned. If he could get to his satchel and his things, and find a change of clothes, then he could get away from the town before anyone realised he was gone. The problem was his bag was at the police station, along with the ID of his previous identities. David had kept them on in case he needed to use them again in the future, but he decided that next time he would destroy them so nobody, no sane police officer could question him again and get the wrong idea.
X
Getting back to the apartment he'd rented out for the last few days was easy enough, and he managed to grab a change of clothes including a cap to disguise his features. But as he hurried to the police station, David overheard the news as the events from last night became clear. Everyone now knew Rhodes was the killer. While that was good news, David didn't care since it meant he could get away from here, but the most important thing was Joan was safe.
Getting into the Police station was easier than David could have hoped for; with the amount of chaos caused by Rhode's sudden arrest now Joan had survived the attack and witnessed Deathmask closely enough to prove positively there was no chance Rhodes was being framed. But really, the Creature had smashed open the grilled window of the interview room David had been forced to spend hours in, so he only needed to slip inside.
It only took David about 10 minutes to find his things; the mob had burst into the room and knocked the table he had shoved against the door aside to get to him, but some of his things were lying about. The good news was he found his satchel and the majority of his old ID cards, but after checking through them, and finding a few missing, he conducted a quick search. They were scattered on the floor. When he found them, he just pushed them into his pockets, and he performed one last search to make sure nothing else was missing.
When he was satisfied that he had recovered everything although he gave the room a quick check, David took a deep breath and left the same way he came in, hoping he didn't spot anyone from the mob who'd tried to kill him last night, never mind McGee. The moment he was out of the police station, David found himself in the early dawn. More and more people were in the street than earlier.
There was nothing else for it, he decided, he would need to go through the backstreets and the back alleys. Long experience had taught him to carry a map or two of a town in case he needed to make a quick, unseen getaway.
As he walked off, David momentarily thought about Miriam and Joan, the only real friends he had made in this place. He would miss them much as he missed all the friends he had made and given up in his quest to find a cure for his transformations, but he couldn't personally visit either of them. He wished he could drop them a quick note, but he decided against it. He didn't have much time for something like that, he just wanted to getaway.
By the time the sun was completely out, David was on the road.