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Chapter 5: Control

"Well Lucas I'm glad you've had your epiphany, but I don't see how it helps my current situation."

Flynn stood with his arms crossed, watching Lucas with a raised eyebrow. Lucas ran a hand over his hair and scoffed, still adjusting to what he had just learned about himself and the Hulk.

"Don't you get it? You're much further along than me, Flynn. You're in control, I'm not. However despite me not being in control, despite the Hulk being this rage-filled beast…he was trying to help me. He was doing something good, and if he can do something good then someone as in control as you can do a whole lot of it," Lucas explained.

"So you want me to become a monster on Department H's leash?" Flynn asked.

Lucas sighed. He knew that he was fighting an uphill battle to make this seem appealing to Flynn, and by now he was beginning to run out of options.

"If that's how you choose to look at it. I see a lot more positives than negatives…which is new for me." Lucas shook his head. "How did we get to the point where I'm the positive one?"

Flynn turned his head to look up at the corners of the chamber he was held in. His eyes shifted from one corner to the other, and finally back to Lucas.

"Tell you what Lucas, I've made my decision. So why don't you go and get Hudson so we can get this over with?" he asked with a stern expression.

Lucas stared at Flynn with sympathetic eyes. He had every right to feel the way he did, and yet Lucas couldn't help but feel as if the decision he was bound to make, was the wrong one.

"Alright, but just know that whatever happens…I'll always have your back, as you've had mine."

Lucas turned slowly and walked out of the tent, leaving Flynn alone with his own thoughts.


Once outside, Lucas looked around for any sight of Claire Hudson, or even Nick Fury. Seeing that the two were both missing, he assumed they were off discussing plans for how to handle Flynn's choice, which he could only assume was to stand his ground and be locked away. He reflected on what his choice would be in the same situation, but he continued to fall back on the option of making no choice no at all.

Suddenly Lucas' phone rang. It was a rather generic ringtone that could be found on any smartphone, but it was one specifically set to alert him that it was his mother calling. Lucas patted himself down, surprised that SHIELD generously put his phone back on his person. Once he found his phone in the jacket pocket, he took it out and answered it.

"Hello?"

Back inside his apartment, Betty stood in the kitchen with her phone held between her ear and her shoulder. Her hands were busy holding a frying pan and a spoon as she prepared her dinner for the evening.

"Hey! Just thought I'd call. I know you're probably still busy but I wanted to see how everything was going," Betty said.

Lucas took a turn and walked a bit away from the tent that held Flynn. He looked down at his feet as they compressed the sand beneath them.

"It's…going, or I suppose I should say…it went. We uh, we found and captured the Sasquatch," Lucas said with a bit of somberness to his tone.

"That's good. Not the capture part per se but that you've finally found it. Do you know who it is?" she asked.

Lucas came to a stop. There was no need to keep the identity of the Sasquatch away from his mother, but he dreaded telling her nonetheless. He closed his eyes and sighed.

"It's…Flynn. Flynn's the Sasquatch, not his dad or someone else…him," Lucas replied.

Betty, who had been in the middle of seasoning the chicken in the frying pan, froze at the revelation. She stared off, processing the news.

"Oh my God…Lucas, I'm sorry. That must be…difficult to handle," she said. It was all she could say at the moment.

"Believe it has been. We've had some words, but uh…I think right now we're on two different pages. I wanna help him, but I'm the one who's constantly needed help so I don't think I'm that good at giving it," he said. Lucas gazed off towards the mountains in the distance.

Betty reached over to grab a few different spices and would quickly shake a few into the frying pan.

"Being there as a friend is help enough. Good friends are hard to come by, especially those with the exact same…condition that the two of you have. I'm sure things with smooth out, and you'll both be laughing about this one together one day," she said, ever the optimist.

Lucas didn't feel the same way. There was a feeling that his friendship with Flynn had hit a snag because of the situation, and he wasn't as sure as his mother that it was one that could be amended.

"Yeah, I don't know. I guess we'll have to see. I should be coming home rather soon now, I don't think they need me for anything else-"

Before he could finish, the Sasquatch burst out of the tent that was previously held in, alerting every SHIELD agent in the camp. Lucas nearly dropped his phone and would turn around with wide eyes. The Sasquatch let out a deafening roar, which brought Fury and Hudson out of the cabin.

"What the hell…" Fury said, trailing off.

The Sasquatch turned his head to stare at Lucas. Once their eyes locked, Lucas could tell exactly what was going through his head. Flynn wasn't going to allow himself to be locked away, or forced to work for anyone. He was going to be free, something Lucas understood wanting.

"Don't just stand there, open fire!" Claire yelled out to the SHIELD agents.

None of them made a move to fire, though they kept their hands on their guns. The Sasquatch turned his attention to Claire for just a brief moment and would emit a low growl. Claire's eyes widened, showing the smallest amount of fear. The Sasquatch leaped high into the sky, off into the distance beyond the trees. Once he was out of sight, Claire turned to Fury with a look of pure agitation on her face.

"Why did no one open fire?" she asked with a hand on her hip.

Fury took one look at her and raised an eyebrow.

"They don't work for you. Now we did our part, we caught the big bastard. That's where our agreement ends. It's time for us to pack up and roll out back across the border," he said with a hint of amusement in his tone. Fury patted Claire on the shoulder while walking past her. "You're in control of the situation, right?"

If looks could kid, Nick Fury would've dropped dead, as would many of the other SHIELD agents. Claire was steaming, but there was no time to focus on Fury. Instead, she took out a radio and spoke into it as she began walking away towards a military jeep.

"This is Hudson to Department H, get me a couple of birds in the sky. The Sasquatch is loose. You send as many men as we can spare to hunt him down," she said while climbing into the jeep.

Raze walked over to her with his hands in his pockets, seeming at ease with the current situation.

"Let me guess, you want me to go cut him up again?" he asked.

Claire turned the jeep on and would pause to glance at the blue-skinned mutant.

"Either hop in or stay out of the way," she said while turning the jeep on.

Raze rolled his eyes before hopping into the vehicle and propping his feet up on the dashboard.

Fury made his way over to Lucas, who was staring off in the direction that the Sasquatch had leaped off in. The SHIELD director came to a stop a few feet beside him and crossed his arms.

"Well Dr. Banner…are you gonna just stand there, are you gonna go stop your colleague from taking on the Canadian government?" he asked, words dripping with sarcasm.

Lucas blinked out of his trance and looked at Fury, registering his words.

"What? I…I can't-"

"Not as yourself, but as that big green ass-kicker," Fury specified.

Lucas shook his head. It wasn't that he didn't want to become the Hulk, though that was definitely an aspect of it, it was the situation itself being foreign territory.

"I've never…voluntarily transformed before. It's always been defensive, or because of me getting angry. I...c-can't just flip the switch and turn it on," he explained.

"Well you better figure out how to turn it on, or your friend's gonna have his lights turned off. For good," Fury said before walking away.

One could always leave it to Nick Fury to have the last word, with said last word being profound to the situation. Flynn needed Lucas. He wasn't a bad person, he was just a man that wanted to be left alone. Lucas wanted to help him, he wanted to go after him…but how could he force himself to transform? Closing his eyes, Lucas tried his best to focus in some capacity, to find whatever he needed deep inside to unleash the beast.


Lucas opened his eyes. He was no longer in the snowy forests of Canada. In fact, there was nothing around him, except darkness. Below his feet was the smallest amount of water on top of a hard surface. In the distance was a large mirror.

"Hello?" Lucas' voice echoed multiple times in the empty space.

He took slow, careful steps towards the mirror that lay ahead. Once he was close enough, he could see that the reflection staring back at him was not his own, it was the Hulk. Lucas tilted his head, and so did the Hulk. He raised his hand, and so did the Hulk.

"...What's going on?" he asked, at a loss for words to describe where exactly he was.

The Hulk reached his large hand out of the mirror, grabbed Lucas by the arm, and pulled him inside. Lucas screamed, but only for a brief moment. He now stood in what appeared to be an empty warehouse. In the center of it was a single chair, and ahead of that chair, on the entirety of the wall, looked to be a TV screen.

Lucas walked over to the chair and placed a hand on it. He looked up at the TV screen, which was full of static, and adjusted his glasses.

"What...the hell is this? What's even happening? Where am I?" Lucas asked, stumped and confused with no answers in sight.

"Mind."

Lucas turned around quickly at the sound of a very deep, monstrous voice behind him. Out of the shadows walked the Hulk himself. The green beast looked down at Lucas, with a slight hint of contempt. Lucas blinked a few times, trying his best to register that the Hulk was standing right in front of him.

"...How are you-"

"Banner's…mind," Hulk replied. He glanced up at the TV screen, which now showed the image of the snowy Canadian forests, from what appeared to be a first-person point of view.

Lucas followed Hulk's eyes to the TV. It took him a moment to understand what he was looking at, but once he did, his eyes widened.

"My mind…this, this is my mind." Lucas pointed at the screen and looked at Hulk. "This…is what you see. You see what I do, through my eyes."

The Hulk nodded in response.

It was the first thing that made sense about where he was, but that brought a new question to the front of Lucas' mind. He lowered his head and his hand, before snapping his head to look up at the Hulk again.

"How come…how come I can't see what you do. Up until recently, I couldn't see-" Lucas gestured to the TV, as well as their surroundings. "This. It was like I went to sleep, and then I woke up to the destruction. Why is that?"

The Hulk tilted his head to the side. His eyes, his face, and his entire demeanor were much calmer than Lucas could've ever imagined.

"Banner does it…not Hulk. Hulk tried to show you…" Hulk said in his broken speech.

At this, Lucas seemed completely confused. How could he be the reason for not seeing what the Hulk does? Why would he voluntarily shut himself off?

"That's…that's ridiculous. I want to see what it is you do," Lucas said, waving the notion off.

The Hulk didn't respond. Instead, his green eyes simply gave Lucas a look, a look that Lucas interpreted as doubt.

"Don't look at me like that. Okay fine…fine maybe I don't wanna see all the destruction you do in real-time. That's…that's a theory. It's one I could ask Dr. Samson about but, look we have to help Flynn. I-I know that's why I've been seeing glimpses of where you were going. You were trying to help Flynn, but he needs our help again. This time it's much more serious," Lucas said.

Hulk crossed his large, tree-trunk-sized arms.

"Banner tried…to erase…Hulk," he responded.

Lucas sighed and rubbed his face. Of course, Hulk knew that he had been trying to find a cure. It wasn't something that Lucas was proud of, now that he stood face to face with him, but it was something they needed to get past to help Flynn.

"I know…I know and I'm sorry, alright? I truly am. I know that there's…there's good you can do. Flynn has control of his monster, he's not like us…but he still wanted to cure himself. If I was like him…if I had control, I wouldn't try to cure you. I won't…I won't try to cure you anymore, as long as you help me help Flynn, okay? Because he needs us, he really does," Lucas said in an attempt to sway the Hulk.

The Hulk narrowed his eyes at Lucas. Now that they were together, face to face within Lucas' mind, it was easy to know if he was lying or not, but could he trust him to keep his word forever? He would have to trust him right now, at least.

"...Fine," Hulk responded, lowering his arms.

Lucas clapped in excitement, a quick reaction that he hadn't intended.

"Now um…how do we do this? How do I…give you control?" Lucas asked.

The Hulk nodded his head towards the chair but didn't say anything else. Lucas looked at the chair and quickly sat down. He placed both hands on the armrest of the chair and let out a sigh.

"Okay…do I…say something? Like...like announcing a Pokemon? Do I count to three or-"

Suddenly Lucas found himself hit with a jolt of green energy. The entire warehouse began to shake and vibrate. Lucas closed his eyes. Upon opening, they were now green, except they weren't specifically the eyes of Lucas, they were the eyes of the Hulk who now stood in the campsite.

Every SHIELD agent stared at the Hulk in awe, including Josh Hammond. Fury looked up at the Hulk with a slight smirk on his face. The Hulk turned to look at Fury, smiled, and leaped over the trees.


Next Chapter 6: Human Nature

A/N: Next chapter is the finale, where we'll see the rematch between the Hulk and the Sasquatch. Who will win? What will be Flynn's fate?