8: Scene Five, Part Two

Bruce spent most of the morning holed up in his office, waiting for Tony to come down, just like he had before. But as time passed, painfully slow, he eventually realized he must have changed their existence too dramatically and that Tony wasn't coming. Not now. And that made him wonder... Where was Tony?

Although he was sure Tony was merely avoiding him and prepping for his meeting with Venture United or whatever, he still found himself compelled enough to ask JARVIS. And when JARVIS told him Tony wasn't in the building, he spent fifteen minutes fidgeting in his seat until his curiosity got the better of him.

He really didn't want to go to her, he didn't, not after he shamelessly appropriated her line the night before and might have done irreparable damage to their relationship – but he reminded himself that this was all temporary... as horrible as that thought was.

Still Bruce collected his breath as he knocked on Pepper's door, sighing with relief at her standard directive to come in and shoving his hands in his pockets so he wouldn't give away how nervous he was.

Pepper looked perfectly calm and put together – as usual – and she finished up whatever she was doing on the computer before looking up at him and smiling. The relief he felt at that simple smile was more than he could express. Tony couldn't have told her – right?

"Hi Bruce," she said, voice warm and full of professional curiosity. "Can I help you?"

"H-have you seen Tony?" he asked, mouth suddenly dry, and her face immediately fell into an attempt to mask her irritation as Bruce's stomach flip-flopped.

"He's on a plane to Geneva," she said, blowing out a sigh and turning back to her computer.

Bruce stared, shell-shocked. Tony was... He what? He wasn't even here? That terrible tendril of hope rose from his gut though Bruce knew better than to believe it would do anything more than strangle him again.

"Why?" The question came before he could stop it and he hated the way Pepper's face tightened but he didn't regret asking it. He needed to know.

"Some conference on theoretical elements," she said, pausing to wave a hand but not looking up from the screen. "He promised he'd be here and now I have to either cancel our meetings tomorrow with the wedding planner and photographer or go to them myself – as usual."

Suddenly she looked up, a guarded look in her eyes that made Bruce more uncomfortable than he thought possible given how uncomfortable he already felt. "Is it selfish for me to want him to be interested in this wedding?"

Bruce frowned, feeling guilty. If he hadn't confessed to Tony then Tony would be there to go with her but... he would also most certainly be dead. This was the closest he'd come to avoiding that so – was it better? Definitely. But he couldn't tell Pepper that. So what could he say?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, blending in the mesh of memories of the repetitious same few months he'd accumulated over the past year, he remembered a look of betrayal and Tony saying that he wasn't sure he wanted to have a public wedding at all.

"No. I think..." – God he hated himself for what he was about to say – "I think you deserve someone who is interested in your wedding."

Pepper's frown deepened and he knew what she must think and it hurt – he didn't want to take Tony away from her. He didn't, really. Fuck – things were so much easier when he wasn't friends with anyone, when he didn't get emotionally involved.

"And Tony might not ever be that person."

That was the truth, wasn't it? It didn't have to do with him, Tony and Pepper just were fundamentally different people. Right? He'd always thought that, always wondered how they made it work because Bruce didn't really believe love conquered all – he tended to believe that love got you killed – but somehow they did it, somehow there was some truth there.

Pepper sighed and rubbed her forehead, disrupting her perfectly placed hair. "I –"

"But he loves you," Bruce continued, cutting her off, watching her eyes fall back to him, deadpan and tired. "I know he loves you. So just... don't give up on him."

She tried to smile but it was weary, run down, and he saw the way her fingers massaged the back of her neck. "Thanks."

Bruce tried to smile back but it must've been equally as forced. At least he felt there was nothing left to say and he nodded his head a little goodbye before turning desperately towards the door only to hear her voice call his name once more when he reached it.

He turned his head back to look at her and she was already buried in her computer again. All business.

"There was a power fluctuation in the arc reactor downstairs – would you mind taking a look at it?"

So he went to the basement to look at the arc reactor. Just as Tony had. And there was no discernable issue, as he'd expected. Then he was called up to meet Steve. Everything was the same except Tony was a thousand miles away, far outside Mister Electric's reach. And there was that hope, that tiny little bit of hope.

"The two of us shouldn't be a problem, huh?" Steve teased him with a casual smack to the shoulder and Bruce kind of grinned and kind of choked on it as he agreed, prepping himself for the scene he knew was coming.

And the scene was the same – Mister Electric with CEO Price held hostage – except that immediately he was agitated, scanning him and Steve and the sky, looking for something.

"No Tony Stark?" he asked, a half-cocked grin on his face that was only partially effective, betraying the frustration he felt. "No Iron Man? Scared of a little electricity?"

"You get us or you get nothing," Steve answered deftly and the mutant twisted the ropes that bound Price's wrists a little in irritation, obviously causing the man pain. "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

"He thinks he's better than me?" The words were sharp and measured and Bruce could feel Hulk watching, their mutual unease mounting and growing in Bruce's gut until Hulk was almost unstoppable. "That's the thing about people like you – everyone loves you. You don't know what it's like to try and try and try and never get anywhere, never have anyone care about you!"

Tony wasn't there but the memories overlapped and built, the fear multiplying like a tangible thing and he knew what was coming – even if Tony wasn't here, at the very least his boss was going to take an unfortunate dive off the roof – and so Bruce let Hulk come, taking a backseat to his larger than life alter ego.

" – he's always thought he was better than me, rejecting my applications, my patents, my work," Mister Electric was saying once Hulk could focus, although it just made him impatient and agitated, feeling the weakness and false bravado in the little man's spiel as he huffed a breath. "Does he think he knows more about electricity than me – than me?"

Hulk didn't care for what he was saying but he was watching the way Mister Electric's hands twisted on the rope and there in the back of his brain he had the vision of the mutant hauling the man to the edge of the building and throwing him over. He knew what was coming and it bothered Hulk on a base level that the mutant seemed to be wholly unafraid of him and so he closed the distance between them with frightening speed, only a few monstrous steps, and he ripped the CEO from the mutant's hands, lifting the mutant up to his face and blowing out hot air in intimidation.

Then Hulk was confused because the puny man was laughing and he remembered holding him like this before and it was disorienting. Hell Bruce often felt disoriented thanks to the experience of time travel – of course it was disorienting to the Hulk. And he hated the way that man laughed, all crazy and unrestrained. It made the Hulk feel crazy too and his hands tightened a little and he shook him a little, trying to get him to stop.

Flag man was yelling something at him but the puny man was talking too and there was something about it that made the Hulk afraid – or more accurately it made Bruce afraid and the Hulk didn't like that – didn't fucking like that at all.

"Ah but the monster knows my potential," he huffed and the Hulk grunted, feeling a shiver of static electricity that made the hair on his arms stand on end.

"Doctor Banner, Stark's favorite little pet. I was passed over for a monster," he continued in obvious disgust as Flag Man demanded in the background that the Hulk set him down and let him be apprehended properly before the Hulk hurt him – but the Hulk wasn't sure yet if he wanted to hurt him or not. "Iron Man might not be here, but I know how to make him hurt."

Then he lay his hands on either side of the Hulk's head and the pain was excruciating. The Hulk rarely experienced pain – or rather, he rarely felt the pain he experienced. Rage protected him from it, forcing himself through anything painful by focusing on destroying it, destroying anything that might hurt him and Bruce. It was his purpose, his whole existence – he was meant to eradicate pain – but this? This was something else.

The Hulk was completely immobilized by it and even Bruce felt it, screaming in anguish with a voiceless Hulk as a thousand volts of electricity ran straight through his body. He couldn't think he couldn't move he couldn't fucking breathe and his knees buckled beneath him, sending eight hundred pounds of dead weight straight into the roof of the building, shattering it as he fell.

He hit the roof with an unceremonious thud and all his eyes could process was red and his skin felt like it was on fire or maybe it was melting – Bruce had no words to associate with the feeling and the Hulk had never felt anything like it before, the intensity more than he could bare, brain blanking out into nothing as he lay there, simply trying to exist. But everything hurt everything hurt and he wasn't sure wasn't sure wasn't sure...

Bruce had retreated so far inside the Hulk to avoid the pain – it hurt like he hurt and never never never did he want to feel pain like that again – that there was nothing – nothing. Nothing but the Hulk staring with dead eyes, empty. And he didn't know how long he lay there, neither of them cared, but then the red changed somehow and it hurt – fuck it still hurt – but it was better, a little. There was gold too, laying on the roof with him, face to face, and it was like all the life was pumped straight back into him when he realized – Metal Man.

But there was something strange and something terrible about that and his heart started pounding so hard, so so hard, and Bruce was waking up and Bruce was screaming how how how howhowhow – !

"Too late." The words were muffled and weird and the Hulk could barely understand them and Bruce had no patience to listen because fuck – what was Tony doing there? What was he doing there? "I'm too late."

But it wasn't like before – was it? His visor was lifting and there was Tony's face and the Hulk tried to speak but he couldn't move his lips at all and the only sound he made was this pathetically soft groan and even that felt like hell. Metal Man reached out to touch him but held back at the last moment and there was something wrong... something wrong because his face was wet and the Hulk knew that something was wrong.

"I shouldn't have left, I'm too late."

Metal Man's voice was shaking and the Hulk could barely understand him but it didn't matter, really. He just wanted to close his eyes...

"I'm sorry, fuck, I'm sorry, I – I'll fix it, I'll fix this."

The Hulk wanted to laugh – Metal Man always try to fix – but he couldn't even move and damn – he was just tired. So fucking tired and it hurt, it hurt so much.

"I'm not even sure if you can hear me buddy but – but I should've told you, I should've told you yesterday, I shouldn't have run away."

Metal Man talked so much, always so much, talk talk talk talk and Hulk? Hulk wanted to sleep.

"I love you."

He was crying now, crying hard but Bruce wasn't there and Bruce couldn't tell him what that meant – why crying? Why would Metal Man cry? Metal Man hurt too?

"Fucking shit, I love you Bruce."

But Bruce wasn't there. And Hulk just wanted to sleep.