Chapter Twenty-Two: Green Friends and (Stereotypically) Dumb Blondes

It was but a moment, but it felt like longer, felt like forever as Peter was thrown about like a rag doll. He felt and saw the burst of orange-white flame in the lab, searing heat and light, felt as he was thrown through the window-wall with two other bodies and a small, darker object. For a second, he wasn't sure which way was up in his disorientation, but it was only for a drawn-out moment before he realized he was falling, Agent Romanoff and Dr. Banner already on the floor below him.

Almost unconsciously, he reached out and grabbed the black object that had accompanied him out the window, which turned out to be Hiro, as the cat latched on to the chest of his sweatshirt with sharp claws. The brunet twisted expertly now that his brain wasn't addled by the panicked thoughts of "OH-CRUD-SOMETHING-EXPLODED-AND-NUTS-NOW-THERE'S-FIRE," something that happened too often for his liking. His hand reached out to drag across the wall until he found the right place to latch on, rather than catching himself with a jerk and possibly dislocating his furry friend from his chest.

With that slowing stop on the way down, he landed in front of the fiery agent in a crouch before gingerly prying Hiro off his costume. The kit stumbled for a couple steps, shook his head, and was fine, to Spidey's eternal amusement. That cat was something else.

His senses dialed up from the explosion and consequential adrenalin rush, it wasn't a stretch for the teen to hear Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark scrambling away from the laboratory with a hurried "Put on the suit" and following shell-shocked agreement. He hoped they were going to fix the engine rather than yell at each other again. He'd rather not have Spider-man go out as "a good-for-nothing masked menace to society," as the lovely J. Jonah Jameson had recently put it.

Agent Romanoff put a hand up to a commlink on her ear that had been chittering away half a dozen conversations at once, none of which the hero had really heard. "Okay!" She spared a glance at the doctor, who wasn't looking so good, his hands clenched and eyes flashing green. "We're okay, right?" Jerking her leg, which he had just noticed was stuck under a heavy pile of collapsed pipes and poles, she tried to keep the fear out of her voice.

Spider-man held out a silent hand and she stopped, carefully watching him stand to easily begin lifting the biggest pipe with barely a tiny grunt. "Doctor? Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me." A couple random engineer-types ran in from somewhere unseen, off to the side. Agent Romanoff quickly waved them off as the colorful vigilante shifted the debris in such a way that she could slip out with no resistance.

The two men glanced at each other, then at Spidey, who pointed back the way they came with one hand, the other arm in a "what are you looking at me for?" position, before finally skittering away. The woman, now free, kept talking to Dr. Banner. "We're gonna be okay. Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never ever—"

"Your life?!" the green-tinged man more growled than spoke, voice impossibly deep and resonant for any human.

"Agent Romanoff!" Spider-man hissed and got no reaction from where he had squatted on his heels by her. "Agent!" Why wasn't she moving, going somewhere? "Romanoff!" She finally looked at him, at his unreadable and hidden expression by the half-mask and goggles. "Go! Get out of here!"

While his was covered by a visible disguise, her invisible mask that she wore constantly was cracked and he could see the disbelief and touch of terror in her eyes and on her face. "Agent Romanoff, I know you're a 'trained professional' and a total badass and you scare me more than I really want to admit. But you need to go, there's plenty of places where you can be more useful, and to be frank, you're only human against the freaking Hulk. Go."

Agent Romanoff's eyes hardened, and she nodded, getting to her feet so smoothly nobody would've guessed she'd just been thrown out a window by an explosion and had a minor freak-out – at least, that's what the little slip in her façade was to someone like her. The redhead scooped up Hiro, who had been creeping over to the convulsing scientist on the floor for whatever reason, he would never understand everything that crazy feline did. She nodded sharply once before running off with the kit on her shoulder. The uncommunicated was clear: Good luck. He almost snorted. When had luck ever been on his side?

"Hey, buddy, Dr. Banner," he shifted his crouch fluidly over to the panting adult, whose clothes were starting to look a little tight. "You okay?"

"Sp-der," the other choked out. "Y' go t—"

"Nope, no can do, doc'. I'm staying right here with you."

"'ll hurt y'."

"No, I'll be fine. I can take a lot of hits."

"S'rry."

"Don't be."

That was the end of the conversation as Spider-man got one last glance at Dr. Banner's eyes. Wide, glistening and filled with remorse that about cracked his own invisible mask – no one ever suspected he wore one – because that's exactly the look he sometimes saw in his own irises.

But those thoughts couldn't and didn't linger long when the brightly clad superhero backed up hastily as the transformation completely overtook his new friend. The normally tanned and rather scrawny man got greener and taller and bulkier and – wow. That was one vividly green hunk of muscle. The spider resisted the urge to jump to the ceiling and hide in some dark corner where no one would notice him, instead backing up and getting into a defensive position. He wasn't going to hurt Dr. Banner – Hulk, whatever – but he thought that he was probably allowed to block the hits if or when they came. He was trying to think positive. The jade behemoth got to his feet, shirtless and stretching those pants to the limit, and grunted before slamming a fist into something beside him as the lights that were still left went out.

The already dim area was plunged into the twilight zone, it seemed. An inconceivably loud and animalistic roar echoed through the space, heck, probably through the whole aircraft, that made him flinch and left his enhanced ears ringing. With him on high alert, so were his abilities, and so here he was with near-perfect night-vison and aching ears as the breaths came heavy from the Hulk. Spider-man stood up from where he had jolted into an instinctive crouch.

The goliath finally realized he was there as he darted his head around randomly, searching for the source of his anger. What he lacked in brains, he made up for in sheer mass and brute strength, the hero knew. This guy would tear through him like tissue paper, no different than Agent Romanoff, despite what he'd told her, or the metal cylinder he had been punching. But all the videos he had seen had one thing in common: the Hulk never attacked anybody who wasn't attacking or threatening him or Dr. Banner.

So, when the creature's eyes locked on him, Spidey valiantly fought whatever self-preservation instincts he had left – which meant pretty much zip – and stood upright, in front of the huge mass of power. His hands were not fisting, his feet were not planted. His arms dangled loosely at his sides and he didn't even have his hood up.

The Hulk moved forward, grunting, advancing menacingly on the teen, going so far as to roar right in his face, but not attacking. He seemed more… confused… like he wasn't sure why he was there. Spider-man's hand began to move slowly, halting when the giant jerked towards it with a smaller roar/grunt combination.

"Wait," the boy said softly. "I don't want to hurt you." His hand made it the rest of the way up with no incident other than the wary, angry gaze. It was being watched with such caution, though all it did was slide the wide lenses of the tinted goggles up into his hair and reveal those chocolate irises. Eyes that glittered in the low light and reflected the Hulk's image back at him.

The grunting sound was lower this time, not so aggravated, more questioning and of lessening irritation. Every move Spidey made was sedate and deliberate, this time the hand coming out and forwards, causing the so-called monster to jerk back with the angry growl again. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

Palm out, fingers relaxed. Not a fist, nor a spade to jab with. Not even poised to shove away.

"I'm not gonna hurt you." After the seconds continued to drag by, a large, jade paw came up and matched the paler one, a mere foot away, and the small, uncovered fingers reached out. They, albeit shakily, brushed the rough calluses before fully placing the limbs together as the huge creature grunted in a weird way, as if the "rage monster" was contented. The teenager looked up to the square-jawed face, eyes shining happily. "I'm Spider-man."

That was the last thing he said before both the Hulk and some fast flash of blonde and armor disappeared with a heavy crunching noise through the nearest wall.

The young spider blinked. Once. Twice. "What the actual heck."

And then he was off, through the hole and into whatever level the two muscle-bound idiots had crashed into, he wasn't sure, but it was crowded with astonished employees who had frozen. Apparently, a Norse god and a green troll weren't things you saw every day, even when you worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Spidey sighed. Well, he wasn't going to pull those two apart anytime soon.

So, he got to work trying to get all the worker ants away from the fight, having to – gently – slap a few who appeared to be in shock. "Hey, hey, I know I'm not your boss, but I don't think you want to be crushed by the violent version of a dynamic duo back there," he joked light-heartedly, though he had the urge to roll his eyes and punch something on the inside. "And as grumpy as Director Fury is, I don't think he'd like that either. C'mon, up an' at 'em." He managed to corral the few who hadn't come to their senses and made a break for it and lead them out of the room, silently cursing the god of thunder exasperatedly.

Wherever Hiro was, Peter hoped he was having a better time than him.

A crashed echoed from the back corner and a stack of crates all but exploded.

And was far away from this.

Yeah, I know I drug out the Bruce-turns-into-Hulk scene, but I thought it was pretty good. Maybe?

On a couple totally different other topics that I wanted to spew at you guys about…

One, lots of people are asking when Hiro's going to turn back or want me to get on with the story. Know that I'm actually in the process of writing that particular chapter, so I can't change my timeline, but I'll keep the comments in mind for future works.

Two, another poll is going up! In a mad search for ideas for the future of MITE beyond the chapter I'm writing now, I came across this insanity: I used to write stories with lots of OCs. Most were scrapped, but one OC of your choice is coming back for a cameo in MITE! All you get is her (all the scrapped ones are girls) name and/or nickname. Choose wisely! Poll will be up for two weeks and it's up this early so that I don't have to pause my writing when cameo time comes. This will really help move my story along (the OC will not be a major plot point whatsoever, though), so please vote!

Three, like my new cover art? I didn't draw it, it was on Pinterest (saved by natalia mosquera pina), but it's still amazing. Kudos to all the amazing artists out there!

Lucky

To Dylan-A-Friend: Finally! ;)

To Enes: Yes, he'll get a human form again (but that's all I'm saying about that!) and he'll be much more prominent in future chapters, but probably not for a while. Hang in there!

To Shadow fear: Aw, thank you! I think that's one of the best compliments a writer can receive, that their story is unique and interesting. It's be rather boring if they were all the same. And Hiro'll have his time in the spotlight, just wait!

To Mic Lubijar: LGBTQ+ (I tried to put the +, but it removed it. Boo.) stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning. The + symbolizes that there is more to the acronym, this is just the shortened version (full is LGBTQIAP and adds Intersex, Asexual/Allies, and Pansexual to the end). As for the second bit of your review, I'm sorry to say I don't know what slash is… makes me sound like a rather terrible fanfiction author, doesn't it? But I'm new to this site, and I still don't get all the jargon. Mind explaining? I hope that answers your review.

To MerlinGryffindor: Not quite… but your guess is close! I won't spoil anything, though, my lips are sealed! Thanks for the review!

To Vladimir Mithrander: Hades yeah. There's going to be a lot of confusion, screaming, and spells. As said in the main A/N, I'm writing it out right now. Anyways, yeah. Poor Peter, I put him through so much…

To Dark Neko 4000: Ah, the questions everybody wants answered. Hope this chapter answers the first one. That second will come up soon… but right now the Helicarrier's going down and they're trying to not die.

To Fire Elemental Frank: Well welcome to the party! Great to hear you like my writing.

To Guest: Soon enough, everyone just has to survive all this chaos.