Chapter 7 – Nerds, Not Just a Fruity Candy

If you asked Bruce Banner what it was like when he turned into the hulk, he would tell you it was almost like drowning. The angry titan that lived in the back of most men's minds set free on the world. Bruce became the voice inside its head, begging it not to smash the wrong person or thing. It was a timeless existence, and when Bruce blinked his way out of it, he never knew how much time had really passed since he slipped under.

Tony sitting at his bedside was a clue that maybe it had been longer than average. More silver had crept into his hairline, a few more wrinkles around his eyes. Bruce tried not to panic. "Hey, I had the strangest dream. I was in the desert, minding my own business and a hoard of goons picked a fight with me. Did I smash them? Were there any casualties?"

"Good morning, Sunshine," Tony said. "I thought you were going to sleep another day away."

"The post-green nap isn't always strictly voluntary. Are you going to fill me in? Did I hurt anyone?" Bruce asked.

"Anyone you hurt from the 'desert goons' probably deserved it, but I don't know. You've been out of commission for a while. Let's start with some easy questions. Do you know who you are, who I am, where you are? Can you name the president?"

Definitely not a typical post-green nap, Bruce decided, stress of the unknown raising his heart rate and stirring the beast inside. "I'm Bruce, you're Tony, this looks like a hospital room, and the guy with the ears, Obama."

"I think all the presidents have had ears." Tony sighed and smiled grimly. "You need to stay calm buddy, but you've lost a few years. Something I'm partially to blame for. I'd appreciate you not going green and smashing me until I've explained from the beginning. Do you need a second to breathe?"

"Years? I've been unconscious for years?" Bruce forced himself to not panic; going green right now would not help things. "That hasn't happened before."

"Not unconscious precisely. Do you remember that hypnotic agent we came up with? You know, the one we discarded as a failure since it left you docile but indefinitely green. Thanks to some unfortunate espionage that has been happening in spurts for years, it got out. You were being held, gassed into submission and green, apparently since the goons in the desert." Tony shrugged, not able to look Bruce in the eyes. "Sorry."

"Who? Who stole the formula? Who was holding me? Years. God. Do you know what the wrong scientist could do with an unlimited supply of my blood in a year?" Bruce was out of bed and looking for clothes before he finished firing off questions. "It was Ross, wasn't it? Was it Ross?" The green wave was on him, ready to sweep him away, but Bruce made himself breathe. He made himself cycle away from the emotion that would cost him more time.

"I won't stop until I know exactly who was involved on all levels. You have my word." Tony tossed Bruce a set of tan scrubs and some tennis shoes. "If you think you can handle it, I'll show you what I've got." Taken aback by the glitter of green in Bruce's eyes, he took an involuntary step away. "Or maybe we should just have some breakfast first, your call."

"I could eat a pancake or twelve."


The way Peter saw it, coming home after being held hostage was bound to be a process, whether you were being detained by terrorists or an immortal time-traveling assassin. He knew to expect a debriefing from Mr. Stark and a bit of hysteria from his aunt. He would have been surprised by anything less. This wasn't Peter's first post-crisis rodeo. You rode the wave of worry or grief, doing what your family needed until everyone was ready to at least feign normality again.

Having Mr. Stark and May tag team him into getting a physical had been a little surprising, and he protested a bit on principal. He was perfectly healthy; every laceration and broken bone had healed well before they could even see them. The physical wasn't such a large concession, really. No, he was saving his real resistance for other easily foreseen issues.

After he watched Uncle Ben die, May had tried to set him up with a counselor, but Peter hadn't been willing then and he wasn't going to let her make him now. It was probably stupid of him, but he had no desire to discuss the details of what happened or how he felt about it. He could deal with his own head, thank you very much.

So Peter let the Avenger's personal physician give him a scan and a listen and a couple of blood tests. He was perfectly compliant, right up until she asked him to head down the hall to speak with Dr. Reynolds, a very kind, very qualified psychiatrist. Peter didn't argue. He waited until he was alone and turned left instead of right at the end of the corridor. Peter decided to see if he could find something interesting before he got stopped by security or a random Avenger. When they asked him why he wasn't having a healing and therapeutic conversation with Dr. Reynolds, he could always pretend he got lost on the way.

Using some of the skills Deadpool had hammered into him, Peter quickly made it a game of avoiding detection as he slipped through the corridors, peeking into labs and a lot of empty rooms. The number of empty rooms was a little sad. For the first time, Peter wondered if maybe Mr. Stark had really meant to make him an Avenger after his successful capture of Toomes.

Peter had successfully made it up two floors before he found an occupied room. The man inside spotted him, and Peter decided to play it cool, pretend he belonged. The room was a kitchenette of some kind and the man looked a bit rumpled in a pair of tan scrubs. Peter raised a hand in greeting and nonchalantly walked to the fridge to look for Avenger appropriate snacks. Not surprisingly, the fridge was full of healthy fare like bean sprouts and tofu cubes. Spotting something more mundane and caffeinated, Peter selected a brightly-colored energy drink.

"Hey," the man said. "Are you an intern?"

Pleased to be handed a familiar cover, Peter nodded. "Yeah, Stark internship. I'm an intern." Who he was talking to hit him like a punch in the gut; that wasn't some rumpled orderly, that was Dr. Bruce Banner. Peter dropped the beverage he had been contemplating stealing. "Oh my God, you're Bruce Banner. Sorry I mean Dr. Banner. I can't even believe this. I'm a huge fan."

"A fan? Tell me you aren't a member of one of those dopey clubs?" It didn't take a genius to pick on the derision in the question. "The big guy doesn't sign autographs and he won't be making an appearance today (hopefully)."

"I'm not in any clubs, well technically I'm on my school's Academic Decathlon team where I'm the physics specialist. It's how I discovered you. The official study book recommended reading your first paper on the thermodynamics of gamma radiation. It was a revelation. Frankly, I've read everything you ever bothered to publish. My personal favorite was the paper for your third doctorate, the one with the goldfish. Not many people can describe a Fourier transformation with a sense of humor. It's a huge honor to meet you." Peter nabbed his soda from the floor and shuffled his feet, knowing he should leave but sorely tempted to stay.

Shaking his head, Bruce couldn't help feeling flattered that a random Stark intern knew his name for more than his green alter ego. "So, you're obviously taking a break. You can stay if you want. I promise not to insinuate you're an Avenger groupie again."

"Really?" Peter asked, already settling at the table. "Do you mind if I ask what you're working on now?"

"I'm between projects. You really got the goldfish joke?" Bruce asked. "The only other person to ever notice it that I'm aware of was Tony. You get to certain academic levels and the people reviewing the articles for publication don't always understand what they're reading. If the stuffed shirts in the ivy league had understood the math, they'd have gotten the joke and they would have made me edit it out, but they didn't. So, a handful of people in the world got a good chuckle. It's kind of the ultimate inside joke. You have a name, Stark intern?"

"Peter, sorry, I should have said." They shook hands and Peter sipped his sweetly fizzy beverage quietly for a few awkward moments. "So, you stayed out of the Sokovia Accords thing. I mean, you weren't there in Germany when it went down."

"Sokovia Accords? I've been out of touch for a few years. What went down in Germany?" Bruce asked.

"Out of touch, were you hiding under a rock?" When Bruce just stared blandly back, Peter ploughed forward. "Short version—Germany was Captain America and friends vs. Ironman and others in a battle royal over how much oversight the Avengers ought to subject themselves to."

"Really? Who won?" Bruce asked.

"Have you seen how empty this place is?" Peter shrugged. "I kind of think everyone lost."

Interrupting their conversation, F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice intoned, "Mr. Parker, you are overdue for your appointment. I'll generate a path. Please follow the light." A steady yellow glow appeared in the floor and marched toward the door in a repeating loop.

"Wow, how helpful." Peter stared at the steadily beeping light, trying to think of a way to stall since it would be hard to get lost again. "Could I ask you a hypothetical question, Dr. Banner?"

Bruce looked at the blinking light and then back to the malingering intern and mentally shrugged. If the kid didn't care that he was late, why should he? "Ask away."

"If hypothetically I'd met a time traveler and he changed the past, did he prove string theory when the world didn't end?" Peter asked.

"Maybe? First, time travel isn't plausible. Whoever this hypothetical time traveler is, he's probably working an angle, a scam." Bruce sighed. Sometimes the smartest people had no common sense, but this was an intern working for Tony Stark, who had enough clearance to wander Avenger's headquarters without a chaperone. He tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. "I've seen more crazy things in my life so…" Bruce shrugged. "Your time traveler is probably a con artist, but anything is possible. Did he try to sell you stock options or get money out of you another way? Did he maybe try to get an introduction to Tony?"

Not surprised that Dr. Banner immediately assumed the hypothetical part of his questions was a formality, Peter tried not to feel condescended to by his other recommendations. Peter grew up in Queens not Connecticut. He knew how a grift worked and how not to get scammed easily. "This isn't a hypothetical Nigerian email scam. I'm not an idiot. If he's working an angle as you put it, it's a really obscure one." Peter pulled a sharpie out of his pocket and started writing on the steel table top. He sketched out a block of numbers in a familiar complex transformation. "This guy travels back in time and starts changing things from the moment he steps foot in the world. It didn't create a paradox that ended our universe, so you can throw out the traditional models of time. I was thinking, if you examined this traveler on an atomic level, you'd see the effects of the trip, maybe even be able to extrapolate data on the true nature of time."

"It's a nice thought, if the man is a real time traveler." Bruce pointed to the third row of numbers. "You missed a constant."

Peter scribbled a quick correction, then offered the sharpie to Bruce. "I don't think he would be willing to be studied, even if it was just to look for evidence of time travel. He had a bad experience with some less than ethical scientists. If I see him again, I could ask him if he might let you have a look." Peter shrugged.

"Why not you? It's your idea. If the hypothetical time traveler visits again, you should strap him to a mass spectrometer and see what you find." Bruce nodded to the steadily blinking light. "Aren't you worried that you'll lose your intern gig if you keep ignoring your appointment?"

Peter took another slow sip of his soda and sighed, he leaned forward conspiratorially. "Honestly, I'm not really an intern. It was amazing to meet you. I'm glad you're back from wherever you were. Mr. Stark could use the backup I think." Peter glared at the light. "I'm coming already."

"Okay, nice to meet you too, I guess." Not very long after Peter followed the glowing trail from the room, Bruce's host returned. Tony sauntered over and took a seat across the table.

"You finished breakfast. Are you feeling, better?" Tony pushed the half-empty energy drink away from him with a frown.

"I'm fine. Did you know there are children wandering around this place impersonating Stark interns?" Bruce asked.

"Don't let the teenager hear you call him a child," Tony said. "I take it you met Peter, and yeah that's a complicated situation. He's a good kid."

Bruce's eyes narrowed speculatively. "A complicated teen who isn't actually an intern that you know well enough to consider him a 'good kid'. Dear God, did I just meet your love child from the wild and sexy 2000s."

"No! Never say that again. There might be a tabloid writer in the duct work. Peter isn't a relative. He's a colleague, a sort of junior Avenger, a bit more your flavor than mine. You know?"

"That skinny kid is enhanced?" Of course, Bruce himself didn't look terribly impressive until the wave of green swelled him to smashing heights. "How did that happen?"

"Kid doesn't like to talk about it, but he uses his powers for good, not evil. I've restrained myself from digging into the mystery." Tony leaned forward, scanning the equation on his table. "Is there a reason you're defacing the furniture with theoretical math systems, while drinking wildly-unhealthy, overcaffeinated beverages? I can get you a pen and some paper or a laptop, whatever you want."

"It's a sharpie on stainless steel. A little ethanol and it will wipe right off. Besides it was your junior Avenger that did the defacing. He was telling me about meeting a supposed time traveler. I think that graffiti might be the start of a reasonably well thought out thesis if the kid decides to pursue theoretical physics in college."

"Theoretical physics is a waste of a good mind, fun reading but it's mostly useless and unprovable. If Peter doesn't pursue a practical science like chemistry or robotics, I'll give him Hell." Tony stood and started rummaging around in the freezer. "Did I hear a request for ethanol? I'm sure there's some vodka in here somewhere. We can clean the table, have a little mid-morning cocktail, and talk about Peter's time traveler. What do you say?"

"There's really a time traveler?" Bruce asked. He accepted the shot of ice cold vodka Tony handed him. "Are you sure?"

"The time traveler, Deadpool, knew where to find you and that you needed help, among other things he shouldn't have. He has some interesting technology that I've not seen before. He's also a scary flavor of insane and the reason we're forcing Peter to attend a few mandatory counseling sessions." Tony drained his shot and winced. "He kidnapped the kid and held him hostage this summer. The doctor says there's nothing physically wrong with him, but the kid's enhanced. He heals fast, and she found some impressive, inexplicable scarring. Peter doesn't want to talk about the details. He's physically fine, end of story. Personally, I don't care if Deadpool's a time traveler or if he technically did you a good turn." Tony refilled his shot glass and raised it in salute to Bruce. "Want to help me catch the psycho before he hurts anyone else?"

Bruce had only known Peter for a morning, had barely exchanged pleasantries but the thought of a maniac torturing him stirred the hulk within. He clinked glasses with Tony and they downed their shots. "Sounds like he needs capturing. It also sounds like he probably has lots of dirt on the people who held me. Sign me up."


Dr. Reynolds was a psychiatrist, but Peter couldn't help thinking she looked rather like an admiral in her navy Chanel suit and neatly curled white hair. They had exchanged names, signed forms and gone through the basic disclaimers any counselor will give you before speaking with them. The next twenty minutes went by in small talk, discussing school and grades and extracurricular activities. "You'll forgive me Peter, but I have to ask about your summer. Would you mind telling me what happened?"

Peter shrugged, resting his hands on his knees, determined not to cross his arms or give away any other body language that he wasn't being open. "I was already debriefed by Mr. Stark. Deadpool drugged me and held me hostage. He returned me when he felt his demands had been met. I spent the summer watching Matlock reruns with Al and eating MREs. It was paradoxically boring and nerve wracking but that's it. The other bits that I told Mr. Stark are need to know, and you don't."

"Okay, you don't need to tell me anything classified, but maybe you could tell me more about the other hostage. Did you become friends with Al? Are you worried about him?"

"Her," Peter corrected. "It's short for Althea. She's older and blind, but ridiculously capable for all that. I guess we became friends, sort of. She looked out for me, but she was more Deadpool's friend than mine, if that makes sense? I mean she was a hostage too, but not the way I was. She wasn't trying to go anywhere."

"It sounds complicated," Dr. Reynolds said. "Do you think Deadpool may hurt her now that you're gone?"

"Sure, but she's safer without me there messing up their status quo. Deadpool is like a gun with a really light trigger. If you know where his triggers are and know not to apply pressure, you can operate pretty safely around him. Al will be fine, probably." Peter couldn't explain why it was important not to admit what had happened to him, but he also knew he was losing the battle, telling more than he meant every time he opened his mouth.

"Tell me about one of Deadpool's triggers."

"I don't suppose you'd believe that I never triggered him?" The doctor just gazed back, patient and kind, waiting. "Stupid random things would set him off, like quoting a pop song or disrespecting Bea Arthur," Peter said.

"Who's Bea Arthur?" Dr. Reynolds asked, innocently.

Peter couldn't help himself; he gestured dramatically. "Not knowing who Bea Arthur was triggered him hard. I'm sorry but the Golden Girls aren't even in reruns in 2017. If they were, they would not be on my Netflix recommended list."

"That sounds remarkably unpredictable and unreasonable. If you don't want to talk about it, I won't make you, but I'd like to know what Deadpool did if you set him off. What happened when you didn't recognize the name Bea Arthur?"

Staring at the floor between his feet, Peter considered saying nothing for the rest of his appointment, just letting silence fill the room with imagined hurts that were probably far worse than anything that actually happened. "It wasn't that bad. He pulled a gun, put it to my forehead, and then decided not to kill me. He made me watch a Golden Girl's marathon with him instead."

"If that's not that bad, I have to ask, what's bad?" Dr. Reynold's asked.

Peter shrugged. Having to break your own bones for a chance to go home? Being beaten within an inch of your life day after day, knowing that it was going to happen again in the interest of 'training' the weakness out of you? Ten thousand volts if you got too close to a possible exit? "I don't know. I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't have to, Peter, but I need you to hear something, whether you ever tell me a fraction of what happened to you this summer. Everything about what happened to you was bad, very bad, but none of it was your fault," Dr. Reynolds said. "Did this individual have a name aside from Deadpool?"

"Um, Wade Wilson," Peter said. "Why?"

"Deadpool is the name of a monster. In this room we talk about men. Mr. Wilson might have behaved monstrously, but he's just a man. He's likely psychologically ill and you can't let his damage in turn damage you. Monsters are sometimes born. They're often made by other monsters. We keep ourselves sane by finding healthy ways to process the traumas in our lives. You seem remarkably resilient. There is a book I'd like you to read. It's called The Body Remembers. We'll talk again next week."

Peter nodded, still looking at the floor. "This isn't the first time I've experienced trauma. Talking about it doesn't make it easier. I prefer to put it out of my mind, but I'll read the book and I'll come back next week because my aunt needs it. She needs you to tell her I'm okay because she doesn't completely believe me." Peter looked up, his expression defiant. "Just so you understand, this isn't for me."

"You wouldn't be the first person who came to counseling for someone else. Forgive me if I try to make it worth your time." Dr. Reynolds walked with him back to Aunt May and their ride, Happy.

On the way home, May chattered at him, discussing mundane things like dinner and shopping for school next month. He responded in all the right spots, but his focus was elsewhere, his mind worrying at a disturbing thread Dr. Reynolds had unraveled near the end of their session. As soon as he could, Peter escaped to his bedroom and went to his closet. Ignoring the satchel of goodies from Deadpool, Peter rummaged through old puzzles and board games until his bucket of Legos came to hand. He dumped bricks and plastic men onto his bed. They were the last toy his parents had given him, a toy he would probably never throw away. For a big part of his childhood he had played with them every day.

Peter sifted through the colorful blocks, looking for a particular plastic man, his favorite when he was little. It was red with a space helmet and a blaster. He had named everything back then and his mom let him write their names on more often than not. When he finally found the toy, he looked at the bottom of its foot. In childish, blocky scrawl the word Wade was printed. Wade Wilson (alliteration was everything) had stared in so many Lego adventures back then.

Clutching the toy in his fist, Peter took slow measured breaths. What were the odds? Not for the first time, Peter questioned whether Deadpool actually knew him in the future, but this time he wondered, could Deadpool be him? Peter laughed while blinking back tears, horribly certain that his hunch was right.

Eschewing the high tech suit he normally wore for patrol, he pulled out the gift from Deadpool. Peter left a quick note for May and he slipped out the window.


Author's Note:

So if you hate the twist, throw rotten fruit. I can take it.

A couple of things I wanted to mention.

1. The meaning of the title is dual. I was not going for random nonsense, though with Deadpool that can pass. When reading quantum physics for dummies and they were explaining different models to understand time, the fact that you can't unscramble an egg came up as a metaphor and I thought it was perfect for what this story was supposed to be. So it's a metaphor for time travel and also for Deadpool and Peter. Deadpool is the scrambled egg. Peter is whole. Deadpool, even by traveling in time can't unscramble the egg that he is, but he could stop the scrambling of his younger self.

2. Whether Deadpool consciously understands that Peter is him before he went through extreme makeover Mengele edition is up for interpretation. I'm not telling. It may come out in the epilogue but that's unwritten.

3. Before it's asked, why isn't Deadpool sticky if he's an older, experimented on Peter? Not all the experiments were as successful as others. A complication from the damage to his skin was losing the sticking properties of his hands and feet.

4. There will probably be an epilogue between Peter and Deadpool and then I'm marking this story complete. There is more story to tell but it would be a part 2 with a different format. I've regretted the format I chose for this story from early on. It would have been better as an alternating narrative that moved between the two timelines. If and when I write the next part, that will be the structure.