The Hulk and the Beast: Chapter Eighteen

Unknown, Purple Planet

After Lily's well-aimed Bombarda ricocheted off the giant dog monster, the four of them decided that the better part of valor was knowing when to book it. Potter, built for bursts of speed, changed into a massive red deer, Black swung up onto his back, holding their trunks as best he could.

Lily, the quick thinker, was soaring overhead, keeping an eye on their escape route, cawing warnings that she wasn't sure anyone else could understand.

It only took them a few minutes loping through the purple brush, the pack of canines on their heels, to realize Tooth Mountain meant the giant, jagged peak in the distance. It was the distinct shape of the massive tusk like canines sprouting from the predators' mouths as they salivated over the thought of eating them.

"Run faster, Prongs!" Black cried.

Lily cawed desperately to get their attention. Black looked up at the iridescent wings and she swooped and somersaulted in the direction of the mountain.

Black reached forward and tugged on Potter's antlers, directing him to follow after Lily. Potter was smart enough not to ignore the directions, and leapt over a blue trunk. The massive beast behind him merely crushed it under its massive paws.

Lily needed something to slow down the beast chasing them. She could gain air, change into a human, and blast it with spells as she free fell. Spells slowed it down. Marginally.

She cawed in frustration. It didn't translate well into bird, it should have had more beak clicks, but she'd only been a bird for a few weeks, so she couldn't be expected to fully understand everything yet.

She gained some height, changed back, and shouted down at them, "Black, they're gaining!"

"My hands are full!" Black shouted back.

Lily had to change back before she hit the ground, but right before she started gaining altitude again, she noticed that the book, which was tied to the pack on Black's back, was vibrating and glowing again.

Once more, she climbed as high as she dared, changed back and shouted, "Potter, get ready for impact!"

Potter bugled in distress. Lily slowed her dissent as a bird, then swooped down behind Black.

"I'll only be a moment!" She didn't have time to grab the book, but she did loosen the belt holding it to the pack, and then took off again before her added weight slowed Potter down enough for the things chasing them to gain too much ground.

She made it about twenty feet back into the air when a beam of light arched from the Book and made contact with her. While in animal form, they maintained some small feeling of their human form. It felt like floating in water, waiting to swap back out with the animal. Being in human form felt the same way, with the animal in reserve.

When the arc of light hit her, she felt something in the water brush up against her fingers. Something long, made of wood and metal. Another something rested on her hip, and a third something, more wooden and slender in her other hand.

While her wings pumped against the air of the alien planet, her human form grabbed into the things brushing against her hand and she felt a shock of magic consume her consciousness for a brief moment.

She gained as much height as she could before losing range on the beast. With her newfound muscle memory, she somersaulted – Potter wasn't the only one allowed to be athletically dramatic, plus it gave her a bit more air time – changed back into a human, strung her bow, and by the time she started free falling to the ground, she nailed a smaller alien that was about to grab Potter's leg and a second that was going for his neck.

Black whooped in delight and Potter bellowed with an emotion only deer could experience.

Earth, July 14, 2014

Tony was a bit annoyed with Remus, he wouldn't lie. Usually, he preferred to be alone in the lab, tinkering on things. Occasionally he'd allow Falcon in if he needed a second pair of semi competent hands or Falcon reminded him that he was technically Tony's intern and he was supposed to be teaching him mechanics.

Now, since Tony had confiscated the mirror so that he could leave it plugged in to the trackers, Remus also behaved as if he was plugged into the trackers. Honestly, Tony should have seen that coming. Remus hadn't let the mirror leave his sight since June when his friends had desperately called him in the middle of the night, stuck in Apparition Land.

At least the kid was quiet, didn't bother him, and didn't complain about the loud music. Thinking of that, Tony remembered the kid had sensitive ears and discreetly turned the volume down. Not too much, that would be a crime against music, but enough that he didn't think it would give the kid a headache. Tony struggled to remember that Remus was prone to letting himself be a doormat if he thought it would make others around him happy.

Tony had the opposite problem. He'd turned being a little shit into a fine art. It was hard for him to understand being afraid of confrontation, as he found it one of the more enjoyable parts of being alive.

Remus was sitting in the corner, quietly turning the pages of his textbook. This was somehow more annoying than him being up in Tony's business, asking ridiculously asinine questions, like most people were when they were in the lab with him.

"You're awfully quiet," Tony said.

"I thought you wanted me to be out of the way," Remus said.

"You're not even curious about what I'm doing?"

"I… yes, but… I don't want to be a bother and…"

"Stop being a doormat, kiddo."

"I'm not a doormat!" He sputtered, adorably.

Tony only had to raise an eyebrow at him.

"It's better than getting in trouble," Remus pouted, still adorable.

"I'm not going to get mad and hurt you," Tony insisted.

"I know that!" Remus protested, turning pink. "Mostly. I don't know, okay, it's stressful. I guess my Dad messed me up, okay?"

Tony knew how that felt.

"He was doing his best, it's not his fault it… didn't work, okay?"

"I know," Tony said. "I get it, I do. My dad had zero social skills. He didn't… hurt me physically, but being ignored…"

"I'm sorry," Remus curled up and tried to bury his nose in his book.

"Just thought you'd like some explanations about what I'm doing. You're smart; you like math."

"I guess," Remus slowly uncurled.

Tony didn't know exactly how Lyall had messed up. He could guess and he had the journal, but he doubted it was as bad as he liked to jump to whenever Remus flinched or apologized for being a burden. There was also HYDRA to blame for that, and Red Skull certainly didn't care about Remus the way Lyall did. Remus had been more bruises than boy when they rescued him.

Parents messed up, that was part of being a parent. Neither Howard Stark or Lyall Lupin could make up for their dropped balls or for missing time with their son, but Tony could be better than that. He could promise not to hurt Remus and do his best to spend time with him.

Tony spent the next few hours working on the tracking device, explaining it to Remus as he went. Remus asked very few questions unless prompted, but he was getting better. And it was surprisingly more fun working with Remus than pretending he hadn't accidently on purpose adopted a kid.

The whole thing made Tony remember why he agreed to letting Sam work with him so often. It made him feel smart to explain something to someone who had no idea what he was doing, and it was even better when they understood his explanation.

July 14, 1973

Potter Manor sat on Potter Hill in Potter Woods at the end of Potter Road. For all of its Potters, there was an annoying lack of anything related to them left in the house. The children had spent their last weeks in the house either packing or destroying anything of value to Red Skull. The only things left were useless knickknacks, like a self-heating kettle, a cauldron that automatically bottled its brews, and several tins of Potter brand haircare products, sans recipes, so Skull couldn't even use it as a front to fund his other ventures.

Greyback may have been instrumental in pulling down the wards, once he was human again, but he was a nightmare to work with. Always demanding his pound of flesh and threatening to eat people who irked him. He had no decorum, no finesse. He let the children get away and gave them enough time to thwart even the most benign of HYDRA's plans for their house, and he let them get away not once, but twice with the very Book that Red Skull needed.

There were solutions to this. The Winter Soldier had yet to let Red Skull down. It was an age old HYDRA adage at this point, born from nearly seventy years and not a single failed mission. If you want a job done right, you send the Winter Soldier.

Evening, Purple Planet

James carried them as far as he could. After five hours, he needed a break, which meant that he and Sirius were on foot for the second leg of the hunt. Sirius passed Meriam over to James. Meriam would have run, but her heart condition prevented her from being as athletic as her brother. James was more than happy to carry her to safety, especially now that she weighed eight pounds instead of eighty.

They were at the base of Tooth Mountain by the time the twin suns set over the horizon and the giant Neptune planet and two more moons came out for the night. Every time they convinced the pack to leave them alone, they got about two hours of rest before them or a new pack decided that they looked tasty after all.

They gave up by sunset, either finally realizing losing their own to a hunt wasn't worth it or the things hunting them weren't nocturnal, which was more likely. Despite losing five of their number to Evans' new arrows, more kept coming.

"I don't like the big ones," Sirius said. "They're legs are too long."

"I don't think I'm going to get used to being a prey animal," James groaned, collapsing in the clearing they had chosen to make camp.

"I hope there's nothing nocturnal out here."

"I'm too sore to care about that."

"I'm almost out of arrows," Evans said.

"Where'd you get that, anyway?" James asked.

"The Book."

"Maybe it cares if we live or die after all," Sirius said.

"I think it cares," Meriam said. "It gives us the tools to help ourselves, it doesn't help us directly. It believes in us."

"Maybe it can't help us directly," James said. "When do I get a cool bow? Pass the book," James reached out and snatched the book from Meriam. He started flipping through it, but as usual, the pages were mostly gibberish. "Hey, Book, tell me how to get a cool bow."

The Book flipped to the entry about the bow. The runes changed slowly from gibberish to legible English.

"It's called Skyfall and there's only one," James said. "I think it's magic."

"It's definitely magic," Evans said, looking over his shoulder. "Ug, you smell!" She cried.

"Thanks, I just spent sixteen hours running from aliens that wanted to eat me and haven't had time to shower," James stuck his tongue out at him.

"Meriam doesn't smell this bad and neither does Sirius," Lily said.

"Yeah, and I carried them for the first five hours!" James protested. "And Meriam for the following eleven."

"Get used to it, Lily," Meriam said. "Soon we'll all smell like James' smelly socks. There's no showers in space. And thanks for carrying me, James."

"I'd carry you until the very end, Amy," James reminded her.

"Do you think whoever wrote the Book made the bow?" Sirius asked.

"I think so," Evans said, unstringing the bow with a practiced ease she didn't understand. "When I got it, I sort of… also learned how to use it. Not perfectly, I'll need to practice to get better aim, but… I don't know, it's hard to explain. I know how to take care of it and how to fire it and I certainly didn't know any of that before."

"It says you've got to earn the power of the weapons," James said. "It's a protection measure, to ensure no one unworthy of the Book's power can use the weapons or magic hidden within."

"Yeah, didn't Remus say something about this book holding the secrets of the universe in it?" Sirius said. "We should try and not be surprised when it does something weird. I mean, it did punch a hole in the multiverse to get us here."

"Why us? Why does it work for us?" Evans paled.

"I don't know," James said. "I guess we're worthy."

"We'll head up the mountain in the morning," Meriam said. "The suns will rise in twelve hours, which should be more than enough time to recover from our brisk jog!"

"Ah, there's that good old, annoying Potter Positivity," Sirius snarked.

Somewhere Else

The last time HYDRA let him out of the freezer, he thinks he was training a boy. It was a scrawny kid, looked like someone familiar, though that might have been because of just how small he was. The Soldier wasn't supposed to think of that. Pain lay there. He didn't remember much of the new boy. The Freezer had that effect. He hated the Freezer. He hated the people around him. Hate was normal, comfortably familiar. He couldn't bring himself to hate the boy, he was too small, too scrawny. He wasn't supposed to think about the boy, he wasn't important. He wasn't the Mission.

The Mission was important. The Book was the Mission. There were other sub missions. Capture if possible, eliminate otherwise. That was familiar, important. He hated it and that was normal.

Less normal was his partner. Greyback, was what he was called. He didn't have the right words, but handlers who did said the Mission was to help Greyback, keep Greyback on Mission. Greyback wanted the children, the Soldier wanted the Book. The Book was the Mission. The children were in the way.

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