Of love and blood
" I was waitting for you Tony."
A new wail broke up in agony, calling to Tony's senses from far below the broken edge, of the first floor, he was at.
Down the huge crater, at the bottom of the second basement and between the huge feet of the monster, a body… what remained of it at least, could be seen.
Rabid with pain trashing mangled limbs, pinned to a broken wall by huge metal debris, and looking not so different from a gory butterfly specimen. Bones and guts stock out of flesh, dripping strikingly red blood, down dull metal and hard concrete, painting a terrible picture of horror.
It took the engineer thirty whole seconds to identify the barely familiar man.
"Ross?"- Oh fuck.
" Yes, him.- the yellow creature hissed,gifting him a sharp smile of fangs like teeth.- I could have killed him but… it wouldn't have been as… satisfying.
Tony was not unblemished by the taste of revenge, nor were his hands clean of blood. But this was taking it to a whole new level of psycho.
"You should tone down the gore here, pall. It's getting out of hand." As always, when nervous, he got talkative.
Surprisingly, his words made the dragon-like creature break in laughter. A loud booming sound of cruel mirth.
"You are such a dork for a genius." the words came with a somewhat fond gaze. And the familiarity of it made Tony's mind spin.
"...Bruce?" he called unthinkingly, taking out his face plate so he could see with his own eyes the enormous expanse of yellow scaly skin, the evil slanted pupils, the too knowing smirk…
There's only one who names Tony so exasperatedly, and so caringly at the same time. A tiny sliver of recognition lighted his chest like a conflagration. Made his ribcage too tight for the ark reactor.
But his calling Bruce's name contorted, Bruce's, yellow Hulk's?, face into a snarl.
"No, not him.- Yellow Hulk, he would call him Yellow Hulk for now, hissed- That weak, pathetic man is asleep as of now.- As fast as the hiss came, it morphed into a new smirk- But do not worry, he has Hulk for company."
The confirmation, in not such words, of having found his lover, dispelled some of the painful ache that, for days, had eaten the engineer from the inside. His mind reeled taking all in as fast it could, his heart ached from the need to touch, to taste, to confirm with more than words and sight that Bruce was alive, whole, and here. Even if in another alter ego form of his.
He took a step forward, unthinking.
An enormous hand curled loosely around his body, sharp claws resting on his flank, where the old armour had dented inwards, and his wounds were still mending.
The soft clicking sound of nail against metal filled the sudden silence, as Tony posed a hand on the scaly skin, wishing he had taken the gauntlet out, so he could feel it.
"Are you afraid?" ,His lover whispered.
"No." Tony offered back. One such word of perfect calm and dead seriousness."Such a stupid question to ask."
Yellow Hulk chuckled quietly at his words, like doing it despite himself.
"Not even after you have seen all the people I have killed in this base? Not after what I have done to Ross?" His hand tightened around the armour, not uncomfortably, but stiff enough to hint at darker things.
Tony didn't spare a glance to the quietly whimpering man at the bottom of the crater, didn't need to. The image fresh in his mind, the smell of blood strong on his nostrils.
"No. Not afraid sweetie." He smiled, his mind clicking in place, understanding what this was about.
Beneath the bravado and cruelty, beyond the terrible hate, it was easy to see the ever present fears of Bruce's; abandonment, loneliness, fear of not being enough, of himself and for others, playing behind the Yellows actions.
This was Bruce taking extreme revenge at the ones who had hurt him time and again.
This was Bruce pushing his beloved away, to see how far his love stretched before shattering.
His darker instincts without brake, rolled together into a new person. The worst of Bruce Banner put together, but still the same man he so dearly loved.
And Tony wouldn't leave him, be he green, yellow, or fucking pink.
"Wanna try something else? I won't ditch you for having a bad day, you know?" His smile grew larger at the softening of the grab. The large hand became a caressing warm around him, as the cruelty slowly melted from the poisonous irises, swallowed by guarded wonder and too familiar warmth.
The biley yellow giving way to kind brown...
"Let's go home." Tony asked.
That's when everything broke in shards.
oOo
"TONY!" Steve's voice cut through the fragile moment, booming in ignorance and fear. Thus, he attacked before knowing anything more than what he saw; an injured friend at the hands of a monster.
His shield struck a yellow eye, and came back to his hand, leaving blood and a ravenous roar behind.
"Steve No!", Tony shouted, but it was like moving underwater. Slow, too slow to stop anything.
He was suddenly cold, bereft of the warm hand around his body, as the afore kind fist, struck Steve, sending him sprawling to the floor with the force of a train wreck, just when the other Avengers entered the place.
No word could have stopped what came next.
It was a lost battle from the start.
Yellow Hulk, far stronger and bigger than the Hulk, had no difficulty in handing two humans, and a super soldier. Where was Thor was anyone's guess. Maybe back in Asgard, maybe caught in some other mission. Tony didn't know, he just saw the God was not there, and felt the obvious absence achingly.
It took no longer than a minute for the brawl to end, too fast for Tony to decipher his own feelings and react, caught between his love, friendship, and the utter stupidity of the situation.
If only they would listen… and they called him the unthinking before acting, one.
Steve ended sprawled across a pile of debris, bloody and twitching with the will to get up, but unable to do so.
Clint was unconscious, his bow broken and his arm oddly bent.
Natasha remained protectively squat at the archers side, her knife defensively held as her gun had been emptied already without effect, the uniform torn, bruises blooming in her too fair skin.
This was the moment Tony encountered himself in. Suddenly keenly aware of the harsh breaths of his comrades, his dear friends, even when he never calls them such aloud.
They can no longer fight, that much is evident, and the yellow alter ego of his lover has stopped on his assault too. But… that's when he sees a new, thin like a blade, smile, blossom in his mouth. Grasp its true meaning when he lifts his hand quite deliberately, and embeds an enormous claw in the Captain's leg.
Steve howls and Tony shout's.
"STOP!"
Yellow Hulk looks at him with a bloody eye. The one responsible for it panting in pain.
"Why should I? He attacked first and now is getting what he deserves.", he hissed voice granting like rocks. Twisted his nail a little deeper, taking pleasure in the responding groan.
Tony took a step nearer, trying as hard he could to look calm and nonchalant, very much aware the Yellow Hulk was not a compassionate or understanding being.
"Steve's not the most bright one, that's true. He made a mistake, but he doesn't deserve to have his leg torn off."
"Doesn't he?", the already cruel smile, turns feral. "Why do you protect him, Tony?", his voice gets frost biting in its coldness, "Think I don't notice the looks you exchange? Your late nights and his early risings, when you stay alone on the kitchen?"
Tony stops speechless at the absurdity of the accusation.
"That's not…"
"SILENCE!" It's a sound of painfully taken fury and unseen wounds, that which leaves his beloved's throat, strong as the tide and just as quivering. Tony found himself silenced by it, as the claw was unplugged from their friend flesh, and blood gushed out, red like the cuts he could now guess inside Bruce.
Still the flow of biting raw words did not stop.
"Maybe Bruce's too weak to speak, but I'm NOT! AND I WILL NOT BE PUSHED DOWN BY HIM THIS TIME, SO YOU WILL LISTEN!" he bellowed. His hand flies fast and hard against the already broken floor not far from where Tony stais. So hard was the hit it broke another section of the tiles, and what remained of the wrecked shell of the building trembled at the verge of collapsing. "If I so much as catch you looking at him, I'm gonna flay Stevie alive, TILL THERE'S NOTHING THERE TO LIKE! Have I make myself clear?"
Tony should had kept his mouth shut, but he had never been good at doing the sensible thing.
"I will look and speak to whom I fucking want to, because this is stupid. You are jealous of nothing but a friend. You are the one I love!" There, he had said it aloud, something he always had problems to voice out loud away from the privacy of their own rooms. "Why would I want to cheat on you with anyone, let alone someone with whom I can't even have a decent conversation?"
"Tony…", Steve tries to warn him between clenched, crimson painted, teeth, finally understanding the situation. Fear for Tony clear in his too blue irises.
"Shut up Steve!" The engineer snapped, already drawn too tight, "Bruce," he called imploringly, even as he would forever deny it. "you know this already. Come on, don't do this."
The Yellow one, shaked his head like in pain, trying and failing to remove something from inside.
"Tony…" he grunted hunching, trembling like too fine ice. His voice conflicted…
Stark couldn't leave him to suffer alone. So he came to his side, taking his gauntlets out to finally touch the smooth scaly skin of a yellow arm; tiny calloused hands, against bulging muscle.
"Tony.." Muttered Natasha in warning, until now silent and observing.
That was the last Tony heard from his friends, since the next second he was being hauled in colossal arms, and taken away fast. He couldn't even react before they were leaving the base.
oOo
(Thor)
Before the place where the Bifrost is born, Thor was at Heimdall's side gazing at the magnificent splendour of the Yggdrasil, but not really finding what he sought. He had not Heimdall's gift, and the golden gate keeper would not help him this time, as he had not done for the last three weeks.
"Heimdall, I dare ask again; Why won't you help us find our Midgardian green friend?" he tries anew, hoping against hope he would consent now.
Heimdall does not look at his prince when he speaks.
"As I have told you before, my Prince, there are much older and powerful beings weaving the threads of your midgardians. And they would not see what has to be, changed by the will of an Aesir, even if such one is a Prince."
"Won't you even tell me the name of such being's?"
Heimdall finally looked at him, all the universe reflected in his changeable golden eyes.
"You call them the Norn's"
It will continue.