AN: I am so sorry! You guys don't deserve a terrible author like me. A lot of things have been getting in my way, mainly motivation, but you guys don't want to hear about that. Don't worry, I am continuing this! I have a ton of ideas I want to get out. This chapter was hard for me to get through (obviously) so I made it a bit longer than the past few. I was going to write more but I decided to just end it here for time's sake, otherwise I might never have finished.

To Qu0thTheRaven: Thank you! The little dialogues are the most fun for me to write, so I'm glad people are enjoying them just as much as I do.

And thanks to everyone who leaves reviews for me! I know I only respond to a couple, but all of them make me really happy, you should see my grin when I get the emails. Without further ado...

Bruce kept apologizing, looking near tears, and although Tony kept reassuring him that the Hulk hadn't hurt him, the suspicious and confused looks from his team wore on him. He was a teammate, a friend; didn't they know him better than this, trust him? They couldn't tell it was really him? The doctors seemed to notice his growing melancholy, since they took him to a private room to be treated and refused to let the others see him.

He could guess what happens next. The others would tell Fury, and there would be tests, and interrogations, and probably a nice, homey cell. He was wracking his brain, trying to come up with a way to convince them he was Tony Stark, short of showing them how to build an arc reactor or a flying suit of armor, but all it was doing was making him more distressed.

He was tense and in pain in more ways than one, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was in the helicarrier's medical wing for three days, waiting for the questions, the suspicion, but getting nothing except Pepper's short and infrequent visits. She was still dealing with his disappearance, which had apparently now been accredited to him dying and her trying to cover it up in order to say in her high level position (which, even if he had died, she wouldn't have to do, since he had left her everything to do with the company in his will). He felt like he was constantly on the verge of drowning, his chest tightening in a way that verged on a panic attack. His team didn't come to see him, and it dredged up doubts that he thought he had long buried: "Iron Man, yes; Tony Stark, not recommended."

The first time he saw any of his friends since being taken for treatment he was doped up with medication and being helped into a wheelchair that he was in too much pain to refuse, on his way to the quinjet that would take him back to his tower. He half expected Fury to jump out any moment yelling "Surprise motherfucker!" and arrest him. They didn't talk, barely met his eyes except for Clint, who seemed determined to... what, prove the others wrong? or something like that. The ride home was silent, as was the elevator ride to the common floor where his room was. Natasha was pushing his wheelchair, which was the only thing that kept him from bolting, because he was pretty sure she wouldn't let the others hurt him without empirical proof he wasn't who he said he was. Clint standing stalwartly at his side helped too.

He wanted to go to bed - just the short time from the hospital to home left him aching and exhausted - but he knew that wasn't in the cards as he was wheeled into the living room and Steve turned around to face him, arms crossed. He let a sigh escape him, which only managed to make his ribs hurt.

"Before you start," he rushed out, not wanting to sit through an entire interrogation, "I don't know why Hulk said what he did. I know you won't believe me, but I am Tony Stark. I don't know how to prove it to you."

"Apparently," Bruce said quietly, still not meeting his eyes, "you don't smell right. The Other Guy thinks you don't smell like Tony." Tony blinked before almost laughing in disbelief, searching the other's faces.

"My... My smell? Guys, smells change as people go through puberty, different hormones become more active. I'm little now, of course I'll smell different."

"It wasn't that," Bruce almost whispered, bunching up his shoulders. Again Tony scanned hard faces, confused faces, questioning faces. The faces of people who he considered to be teammates, friends. Frustration and desperation boiled up in him, and he clenched his fists, trying to force down tears.

"I- How do I prove it to you?! How do I prove to you I'm Tony?" Steve clenched his jaw, looking unsure, and he forced himself out of the wheelchair, knocking it back into the wall. "I'm Anthony Edward Stark. I'm forty-three years old, son of Howard and Maria Stark. I graduated from MIT, created the best goddamn A.I. the world will ever see, made a miniaturized arc reactor and an overpowered suit of weaponized armor out of a box of scraps in a cave in Afghanistan after being tortured. I-" His breath caught on a threatened sob, and dammit, not again, he was so weak. He couldn't stop fucking crying for one minute in this body! Children were so weak! He could feel his shoulders and hands shaking, Natasha and Thor stepping towards him as Steve and Bruce stepped back. He stepped back and sank down into his wheelchair, unable to stand anymore, before jumping back up with a yelp, his hand going to the back of his head where a prickle had raced through it. "What the fuck?"

"Tony," Natasha breathed, half in horror, as she watched his eyes grow lighter and lighter, to a brilliant iceburg blue, and the tips of his fingers and ears begin to redden, and his wounds heal themselves before her eyes. He looked down at his slowly coloring hands, jerking silently as his broken ribs knitted themselves back together, watching in horror as color spread up his arms, feeling the prickles of healing injuries.

"What?" he whispered, mostly to himself, terror and confusion and a sickened feeling spreading through him like ice. "What... What the fuck? Oh my G-God." He looked up, trembling, staring at Clint, Steve, Thor, as they pulled out their weapons and readied themselves, against him, Jesus Christ they had to help him! "I don't u-understand. Oh my God those f-fuckers mutated me-" And he couldn't help it anymore, hyperventilation coming on fast as tears streamed down his face. He wanted help, needed help, but couldn't ask, didn't know how, didn't even know who could help. "I can't- I-" He needed to get to the lab, he needed to reverse this. Insatiable insecurity poured through him. Suddenly everything was too loud, too bright, too much. He knelt to the floor, covered his ears, and let himself cry.

Natasha was next to him, confused and ready for a fight but more concerned with the fact that if it was Tony, he was going through hell, and if it wasn't, Clint was at her back with an arrow leveled at its head. "Tony. Tones, come on, let me see you. Calm down, calm down, we'll get through this. Hey, we'll get through this, I promise! We'll figure it out, we're the Avengers; Tones, c'mon, don't do that..."

Thor was yelling, although he was always yelling so that wasn't a surprise: "What is this ailment that afflicts you, Anthony?! What villain!"

Bruce was apparently mimicking Tony, doubled over and covering his ears, shaking as he tried to control the rage pounding inside him. Tony himself was shouting, pushing at Natasha and nearly incomprehensible. "I won't let you tell Fury! Fuck Fury! I'm not going to Xavier either - I don't want to be in the X-men! I'm an Avenger! An Avenger!" Natasha was shushing him, trying to reassure him, but hesitant to touch his vibrant skin, unsure of what effects it could have.

"Of course you're an Avenger. We won't send you to those second-rates just because of this."

"Thor," Clint commanded, just loud enough to be heard, silencing the others. His bow was lowered now, still in a defensible position but not an immediate threat. "Stop shouting, it's not helping. Steve, go call Pepper. Tell her to come now. Bruce, you alright man?" Thor looked sheepish, taking a step back and nodding in response. Steve met Clint's hard eye over the archer's shoulder, pale and unsure of himself, glad someone else had stepped up to be the leader for once. He too nodded his understanding, taking a step back before spinning quickly to find the landline, the one Tony had installed in the living room just for him because he was still pretty bad with cell phones. He collided with Bruce, grabbing his arm to steady him and stammering out apologies, stepping back as the scientist's eyes flashed green.

"Dammit," he growled, still clutching his head. "Dammit, dammit." Natasha sprang up as defensive positions were once again taken. Tense silence rang in Tony's ears as he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed himself against the wall, clutching at his arc reactor like someone was about to take it from him, like it was the only thing keeping him on the ground.

He wasn't scared of the Hulk. Nothing Hulk did was his or Bruce's fault. Hulk was like a child, that didn't know how to control his emotions, but he wouldn't intentionally hurt his friends, not ever, and Tony was his friend. But he didn't recognize Tony right now, and that was scary, because he could do a lot to someone who wasn't his friend, and only Bruce would regret it. Tony wasn't scared of the Hulk, but maybe he was a little scared of what he could do. He was scared of what they could all do, if given the chance. Who knew how much they could screw up?

There wasn't a roar, or the smashing of his possessions, or even Natasha performing a lullaby, as he expected. There were footsteps, the floor vibrating harder as they approached him, and warm breath ruffling his hair. With his eyes closed, he could imagine it was something less dangerous standing over him, like a horse or a nice dragon or whatever kids were into these days. Trolls? He didn't understand why the others weren't doing anything, until a rough touch poked at the side of his head, knocking him back into the wall again from where he had eased off it.

He didn't want to open his eyes. He wasn't afraid of the Hulk, but he wasn't keen on looking at the Jolly Green Giant and being reminded just how much smaller he was than everything else now. He did it anyway, meeting acid green eyes that shone with primitive intelligence, feeling his hands shaking. He glanced down at them, willing them to still, only to remember why his chest felt so tight in the first place, panic spiking through him again and having him swallow roughly. Why weren't the others doing anything, again?

Hulk poked him again, this time in the shoulder, and his hand shot up to his reactor again, clutching it desperately, needing the comfort of its consistency. Right, because the Hulk wasn't being aggressive. He could read the shock on their faces past Hulk's massive shoulder. He was absolutely dwarfed by the Other Guy's size, even with him crouching to sort of meet his gaze.

"Tiny Hulk sad," Big Green finally rumbled, pushing a hand behind Tony to pull him closer. "Hulk not like. No sad."

It felt like Tony was back in space, suffocating slowly on the small amount of air trapped in his suit. Tiny Hulk? What the fuck kind of bullshit was this? What had those men been working on? If they had claimed they were an offshoot of HYDRA, or even AIM, he would've believed that they could do something like this, but they were, according to all intel, a completely independent group. How did they have the resources to do something like this? And why did the Hulk think he was a baby hulk?

And, even though there were all these far more intelligent questions bouncing around and making his head ache, he responded brilliantly, "I'm not green." Hulk huffed out an angry breath, pushing the bangs back from Tony's forehead and making him clutch the reactor tighter, his nails digging into his own skin through the shirt.

"You small Hulk. Smell like how Hulk smell." How did Hulk know what he smelled like? What would Hulk even smell like - gamma radiation? Sweat? Whatever serum Tony had been injected with? Considering it was a serum, Tony had assumed that the group had been attempting to replicate what his father had helped do to Steve, but maybe he was wrong? Or maybe he was right. There were some (uninformed) rumors that Bruce had also been working on replicating the serum, or his colleagues had been. Banner had never indulged the rumors, or shown any interest in Steve and the serum, but perhaps he had been wrong? Even if it hadn't been Bruce, maybe he had been exposed somehow?

But that was preposterous. Tony had done his utmost to learn everything he could about Banner after the tragic (and fascinating, the Hulk part of it, anyway) incident in Harlem. So just what had the organization been aiming to do?

Either way, how was he now a baby hulk? It made no sense. Hulk had been formed through gamma radiation, and he was clearly not radioactive, nor was his blood, and he hadn't been exposed to radiation, only injected with the serum. And the serum had the opposite effect from what happened to Bruce - he was small, even younger, now, while the Hulk was larger than Bruce was, although one could not claim him to be older, mentally or physically.

By this point the Hulk had pulled him close, practically crushing him against a chest built like a brick wall. "Hulk hug," he rumbled, sounding calm.

"You sure do," was Tony's intelligent and muffled response. "Can someone help?"

"Hulk, buddy, let Tony go," he heard Natasha say softly.

"Tin Man?" Hulk roared, looking around as Tony clapped his hands over his ears. "Where Tin Man? Don't see him!"

"Right here," Tony responded tentatively, trying to squirm out of the crushing grip.

"Tin Man your puny human?"

Tony was so incredibly over this conversation. He was tired and just wanted to be away from human contact for awhile, so he could figure out how to turn his skin back to its normal color. "Can someone get Bruce back so he can let me go?"

It was hours later, far into the night, when Tony emerged from his room following the realization that unlike previously the hunger ache in his stomach wouldn't retreat if he simply ignored it. He had, before this whole new fiasco, installed a lock on his door when he found out the previous one had been removed, irate at the clear breach of privacy. He had heard Steve and Bruce try to enter his room earlier, eventually giving up when he simply turned his music up and ignored them, but Thor, Clint, and Natasha stayed away.

Eventually, after an hour or so, the pigment of his skin had faded back to his natural color, leaving him confused and angry. He wanted to know what was going on with him, but he wasn't a biologist, and was too strung out to read up on it. So instead he tinkered or napped or talked to JARVIS while writing his new upgrades, still miffed that security had been breached twice.

He crept down the hall, keeping his footsteps silent as he made a beeline for the kitchen, but either he wasn't quiet enough or the others had collectively decided he needed a babysitter, because Clint leapt up from the couch as he crossed the living room.

"Tony!"

"Don't," he said harshly, his voice rasping past the lump in his throat that he thought he had managed to swallow hours ago. "Just don't. I don't want to talk about it."

"It's not a big deal, man."

"Not a big deal?! I'm a freak!"

"You were a freak before," Clint quipped, slightly anxious.

"Yeah," Tony muttered, staring at the fridge. "But no one knew except me."