A/N: I'm here with my biannual chapter updates LOL. Semi-filler chapter for this one, starting to go more into the events of Norton's Hulk and IM2. Mind the handwavy science and enjoy XD
[Tony Stark]
Today 2:56 AM
Danny: Hey Tony, I have a question
Tony: i might have an answer
Tony: but first wtf are you doing awake so late
Danny: Never slept. Anyway you guys are heading to DC right?
Tony: unfortunately
Danny: I have a thing in Willowdale so I wanted to ask if I can fly over there too
Tony: what, is your shield brother not willing to help you
Danny: I wanted to ask you first
Tony: oh
Tony: what "thing" do you have in west virginia
Danny: A college tour for Culver University
Tony: huh
Tony: okay, i'll have pep add you onto the flight manifest
Danny: Thanks, you're the best!
Tony: obviously
Danny couldn't help but roll her eyes at her text messages, but immediately sobered up. Did she feel guilty for lying to Tony? Just a little. Technically speaking, she was going to tour Culver University. That it was a tour entirely self-guided wasn't something neither Tony nor Pepper needed to concern themselves with. They had enough on their plate as is with that important-sounding Senate committee hearing that Tony was summoned to.
Over the last year, with Stark Industries taking on a "new direction" and Tony's new hobby of superhero-ing on the days that ended in Y, there was an increase of security presence and governmental oversight that kept trying to poke holes in Tony's little bubble. Danny, to the knowledge of very few, got swept up right along with him in the sea of red tape. SHIELD had her doing check-ins and follow-ups at random intervals; the only thing that made Danny agreeable to the observations was the caveat that either Agent Coulson or her brother be with her when they did happen.
Sitwell had argued early on that Danny was "out of her goddamn mind. Why would we assign busy high-level agents to babysit an Asset when STRIKE is already on stand-by?" No one wanted a repeat of the hell that went down at The Workshop where Danny had been held, least of all her, and it took Coulson pointing out that both Danny and the Sharp One needed to feel comfortable under their care for Sitwell to get the message through his thick skull.
Clint was a SHIELD loyalist to a fault. From what Danny understood, he believed in the good they did in keeping the world and its occupants safe. She had to admit, while she didn't trust the spy agency further than she could throw a grown man, they'd kept her and the Sharp One out of the media. They'd kept her in check, protected her more than Tony probably could have in his position, and she wasn't going to deny SHIELD that.
Not to mention, it was a lot easier to get access to certain classified information when she was working from the inside. With one micro-USB and a distraction to steal an agent's credentials later, Danny was able to get copies of specific dossiers of enhanced assets on SHIELD's radar. Namely, hers and Dr. Banner's.
After the initial incident that had irradiated him and created what they'd monikered "The Hulk," SHIELD worked with a dozen U.S. and international agencies to track down the scientist and his whereabouts. There were redacted mission reports that were tagged as Director Only, but Danny knew that she had to start from Banner's ground zero. That meant reaching out to someone else who was there that day: Culver University's professor in cellular biology, Dr. Betty Ross.
Keeping the reason for her visit to the campus was a lot easier than Danny originally imagined. All she had to do was rib Tony a little about MIT, convince Pepper that it was something she needed to do on her own, and promise Happy that she wouldn't turn off her cell phone's location for any reason. Simple enough.
Do you think they bought it? Danny inquired internally, shaking off the feeling of anxiety after being let off at the university.
Unsure. You have the misfortune of being an incredibly awful liar.
You're so –
Infuriating, yes, I'm aware.
Danny scoffed, "I was going to say 'a pain in my ass', but…" She trailed off when a couple of students glanced her way for a moment before turning away abruptly. There was no telling what they gleaned from the expression on her face, but she hoped it wasn't a blatant yes, I'm talking to the voices in my head.
I am but only one voice, the Sharp One commented needlessly, and Danny ignored it like she often did, searching the campus directory for the building that Dr. Ross's office was supposed to be. By the time Danny made it across the large campus and up the three flights of stairs to the scientist's office, Betty Ross was shutting the door to her space, locking it, and starting her way down the hallway.
Danny called after her, rushing down the corridor. "Dr. Ross! Wait!"
Betty's footsteps slowed as she turned, dark hair tied back into a loose ponytail shifting over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, my office hours are over for the day. If it's not urgent, feel free to—"
"No, I'm, uh… sorry," Danny said sheepishly, huffing slightly as she approached. The slight crease between the professor's brows told her she needed to be smart about her next words. "I was hoping to get your, um – to pick your brain about some primer research that I've been—"
"Why don't you send me an email about your thesis, and we'll talk over it tomorrow, okay?" Betty offered with a thin-lipped smile, starting to walk down the hall again. "I have somewhere to be in a few minutes, and I really can't be late."
Without thinking, Danny spit out: "It's about Bruce Banner."
The way Betty nearly tripped over her feet at the mention of his name made Danny's stomach churn with anxiety. "What do you think I know about Bruce Banner that isn't already in the papers?" she asked, testing. "I can't help you, hon. I'm sorry."
Danny hesitated, unsure how much she should reveal. The USB drive in her pocket suddenly felt like heated iron, and her mind raced with the different scenarios that could possibly play out. "I have clinical evidence that Dr. Banner isn't the only one who's been afflicted with overexposure to gamma radiation."
Throw out the bait.
She dug into her pocket, pinching the silver USB between her fingers, and then held it up for Betty to see. "Female in her teens, subjected to experiments from stolen research years ago. Serum transfusions and radiation were introduced to her body in tandem with stressors, which triggered—"
"There's no possibility any of that could've happened without anyone hearing about it. The kind of power and resources you'd need…"
Money makes the world go around, the Sharp One hissed. Danny took a step forward. "Just… look at it. It's all here."
Betty looked at her, skeptical. Cautiously, she asked, "How do I know you're not just trying to punk me?"
Danny's eyes burned hot, and the searing pain in her forearm came back as the claws began to reveal themselves from her skin. "Believe me now?" she challenged.
The heavy thud of Betty's bag hitting the floor was a resounding yes.
Dr. Betty Ross spent the better half of the afternoon in her office with Danny, pouring over the SHIELD documents and files stored on the drive, shifting between morbid curiosity and stunned horror. "It's all so… fascinating," Betty said eventually, staring at the acquired lab results. "I mean, not to disregard the atrocities you've gone through, Ms. Barton, but… Objectively, the successful recreation of Bruce's accident and the additive of—"
"What do you mean 'recreation'? How much of… of that happened to your friend?" Danny inquired, frowning.
"I can't necessarily – How much are you cleared to know?" Betty shot back.
Danny scoffed. "Doc, as you've seen, I'm basically Big Green 2.0 with some extra shiny bits. I'm plenty cleared for the low-down."
Betty looked unconvinced. "It's complicated."
"Then, tell it to me like I'm a child."
"Okay, uh…" Betty looked at Danny, who held their eye contact. "Well, Bruce and I had been recruited along with other scientists to attempt replication of the very serum that made Captain America back during the Second World War. A serum variant you were also given."
"The Super-Soldier serum."
"Precisely. We'd aimed to utilize its regenerative properties to treat radiation sicknesses, at first. We eventually saw a potential for the project to evolve past that, to eradicate tumors, to remedy neurodegenerative diseases, even strengthen ailing patients' immune systems."
"If Banner was appointed to the project, then how'd he become…" Danny trailed off, not wanting to finish. She asked instead, "What happened to him?"
"Lack of funding, ironically enough. A patient exposed to a great deal of radiation was needed to see the experiment through, and he… he volunteered when the military wouldn't give us one. Maybe out of spite or out of obligation, I don't know. We knew it was dangerous, it came with the territory, so I'd developed a particular myostatic primer that let someone's blood cells temporarily absorb radiation."
Danny sat thoughtfully, glancing at the files of her own procedures that were splayed on the desktop computer. "It's what kept us alive," she muttered under her breath.
"It's definitely the most likely theory." Betty clicked through other documents, scanning through lines of data. "Against protocol, Bruce had tried to expedite results by overdosing himself with gamma radiation. It should've killed him, and you. With the amount of radiation that you were individually subjected to, I wonder how the other variables factored into your development."
"What, like why I don't turn puke green whenever I rage-quit video games? Or why I've got knives for arms?"
"Yes," Betty confirmed, "and how your cells bonded with the serum and genetically modified transfusions while simultaneously healing your once cancerous cells and rejecting the – the foreign objects surgically implanted into your forearms."
Off of Danny's incredulous look, she elaborated further: "It's cited in the retrieved documents here that you had flatlined during the initial surgery, but it wasn't until after the peak of cellular regeneration was reached did your body stop fighting itself."
"You lost me at 'genetically modified transfusions'," Danny admitted, blinking.
"The cocktail of things you were injected with? They basically mutated various genes and increased the speed at which your cells get replaced, which in no certain terms implies that you heal so fast that your body doesn't have time to form bad cells. Although, I don't know for how long it'll stay at that rate."
Danny tried to absorb the information, wrapping her mind around the new insight. If what Dr. Ross explained was true, then that meant two things. One: Her cancer was still alive and kicking. Two: SHIELD knew and never bothered to tell her. Maybe to protect her from dangerous interests, or to have a failsafe in case the Sharp One took over again?
Are you willing to risk it all on "maybe"?
"But you're saying that there are still bad cells? That if I stopped healing, everything would just… level out to my original baseline."
"Hypothetically, yes. We'd have to run tests to be sure."
Danny sighed, fighting the urge to punch something. "Well. There goes my silver lining."
The first time Danny ever noticed anything weird, it was when she'd entered Tony's workshop in the middle of the day and the place smelled like freshly mown grass and rancid apple cider vinegar. She pulled the front of her shirt over her nose, gasping, "What the fuck is that smell?"
"Too much?" Tony asked, twisting the top of a bottle closed. Dark liquid swished in the clear container, and Danny for the life of her couldn't understand how the man could swallow it down with a straight face.
Danny huffed, trying to rid her nose of the vinegary scent. "Dude, it's like you killed a garden by dowsing it in vinegar. Why are you willingly drinking that? Ew."
"Health cleanse," Tony said simply, as if it made any sense. He took another swig of his drink, eyes narrowing as he observed Danny's reaction. "Great source of antioxidants and anticarcinogens while keeping me young and spry. How can you pick out the chlorophyll?"
"Super freaky heightened senses, remember?" Danny made a beeline to one corner of the workshop that she used to store a lot of her collected items, rummaging through a box before finding wrist braces and a multitool. When she got back to her feet, Danny stole another glance in Tony's direction. "At least eighty-six the vinegar, Tony, if only to keep from smelling like a marinated salad all day."
"Don't think I won't square up with you, kid. I smell like fresh fuckin' flowers."
"When was the last time you showered?" Danny countered, raising a brow.
Tony froze for a moment, eyes darting to the side before returning. "Yesterday."
JARVIS's voice eased in from the speakers, revealing, "Sir, it has been approximately eighty-three hours since—"
"Mute."
Danny softened, noticing for the first time the vulnerability hiding in Tony's eyes. She thought, Maybe there's a slump he's in that I can pull him out of.
He's not a child, Daniella. The man can take care of himself.
He's also too proud to ask for help.
That's your savior complex talking.
"I do not have—" Danny stopped herself short, feeling her cheeks burn hot when Tony looked at her in confusion. Attempting to save face, she said instead, "I don't have, uh, anything really important to do the rest of the day."
"Uh… thanks for the update?"
Smooth.
Shut up.
Danny rocked on the balls of her feet. "There's a new movie that came out last weekend, Remember Me, with that guy from Twilight and one of the James Bonds. Since you don't seem too busy either, I figured—"
"Craig or Connery?"
"Brosnan."
"Does he sing?"
"God, I hope not."
"Sure. Let me throw on my 'I'm Not Tony Stark' get-up and shower so no one thinks I slept in a greenhouse." Tony snorted a laugh, placing his drink into the minifridge sitting near the counter. "JARVIS?"
"Already purchased the tickets, sir."