You guys are awesome. Have a cookie and an update.

Still not mine, but I'd treat 'em nice.


Chapter Nine

Steve

Something was definitely up. Steve could almost taste it.

He took a very hot shower after the bombshell that was breakfast. He spent some time scrubbing at his skin until it was pink, washing the residue of New York's morning traffic off his skin and the tension from their impromptu meeting from his mind. Clint and Natasha would be fine, he was sure. Of course they would be fine. They would. They were the very best, after all. Still, Steve hadn't ever liked sending his men where he wasn't willing to go; there was a reason he had always been the first wave of attack or infiltration when it came to those damned Hydra bases.

And Bruce. What the heck was going on there? He was still pretty confused about the whole thing. Who on earth was this Samuel Sterns 'Leader' fella? And Hulk... Two people were actually one person? So how did that work?

As he was towelling off his hair, there was a knock at his door. He pulled on yesterday's jeans and opened it to find Tony there, gently buzzing with anxiety.

Oh yeah. And there was still something going on with Tony, too. He was acting twitchier than usual, and he'd developed a tendency to stare – but only around Doctor Banner. Steve had been watching his face during breakfast, and it had been nearly as confusing as the conversation. Was it the whole Hulk thing?

Jeez Louise. Was Thor really the only one he didn't have to worry about right now?

Great, he'd probably jinxed it by thinking that. Now Thor was going to fall down a manhole or something.

"Come on, Cap," Tony said the second the door opened, shifting impatiently from one foot to the next. "Let's go already."

"Where are we going?"

"Down to the Hulk cage, where else?" Tony rolled his eyes. "Put the gun show away and let's go see Banner and the green guy. I want to know more, don't you?"

"About... Tony, maybe we should respect their..."

"Well, don't you?" Tony folded his arms and lifted his chin challengingly. "Course you do. You're as worried as I am, aren't you? You know something's up."

Can Stark read minds now? "Doctor Banner told us what was happening with him," Steve said, dragging on a shirt. "Shouldn't that be the end of it?"

Tony blew air between his lips derisively. "Same person, shared psyche, yadda yadda. I knew all that. Fuck, I've been saying it for half of fucking forever. No, something's going on with the Banner half of the equation."

"It could just be that he's come to peace with it," Steve said, though a little voice inside him told him that this wasn't quite the answer.

"Banner? Peace? You've met the guy, right? He doesn't do inner peace, Cap, his whole schtick is the exact opposite of peace. Nah, this is something else. Didn't you see him? I've never, never seen anything like that. No stammering. No turning his eyes away. No deflecting the questions. He sat there and basically told us how to take him apart, and he was cool as a cucumber. That's just gotta be a front, and this fucking Leader thing can't be helping. We should be there for him. This is team stuff, c'mon, you're always into team stuff."

Steve took a deep breath. "I'll get my shoes."

"Thanks, Pops."

"I'll be ramming them somewhere uncomfortable if you don't quit calling me that."

"Oh, Spangles, you are so Team Dad. Last month you told Clint that he 'should have thought to go before we left' and everything."

Steve ignored that and followed the nervously babbling billionaire towards the elevator.

The Hulk was also taking a shower when they arrived at the Hulk Cage. It was very, very different this time around. For a start, Steve wasn't required to demonstrate. Instead, it was a dark haired physicist that stood with the monster beneath Dummy's showerhead. Bruce was stripped to his underwear with a plastic bag wrapped half-heartedly around his cast, and his face was surprisingly serene.

Hulk's eyes never strayed far from Bruce. He reached out every now and then to touch him as the water cascaded over them, and his hard green eyes closed when Bruce's hands sank into his hair and scrubbed at the flaky blue paint. He grinned that savage, satisfied grin when Bruce washed the yellow paint off his own nose.

"Yellow," Hulk snickered.

"Is it gone?" Bruce tilted his face up so that Hulk could check.

"Gone now," Hulk rumbled.

"More's the pity," Tony said as they entered.

"You're a laugh riot," Bruce muttered, and rubbed at his nose again.

Hulk was visibly happy to see "Star Man" and "Tony", whirling around and spraying water everywhere as it bounced off his giant body. His naked giant body.

"Hey Brucester, I hope you appreciate the fact that I have a million things I could say right now and I am very selflessly not saying them because I am a good friend," Tony said, a massive smile on his face.

Bruce sighed. "Yes, I appreciate it, Tony."

"Metal Man! Tony here, look Bruce!"

"Hey there, big guy. Very big guy. Very, very, very... Um. He's you, huh? How about that, that is ever such a shock, I may faint in awe and surprise. So what do I win, Bruciekins? Bragging rights for a year? The title of 'Sexiest Scientist Avenger?' Will you give me a lap dance?"

"Suddenly I am appreciating you a lot less."

"That's enough," Steve said in as repressive a tone as he could.

Tony sat down on a broken boulder, grinning merrily. "Team Dad."

Steve repressed a huge sigh.

"Star Man help Hulk? Rain experiment again!" Hulk flicked water in Steve's direction, and he smiled up at the grinning monster.

"I think you're good, Hulk. Bruce has got it under control."

"Bruce," Hulk said, his gravelly voice softer, and turned to where the smaller man stood waiting.

"Come on you, back to work," Bruce said, and absently patted Hulk's arm.

They waited as Bruce helped the Hulk shower. It was one of the more peculiar things Steve had seen – and after the Chitauri and Schmidt and mutated sewer monsters and flying lizard-dogs and 21st Century Soho, that was saying something.

They handed the sponges to each other without speaking a single word as though some strange telepathic communication were passing between them, trading touches carelessly. Hulk washed Bruce's bruised back with total concentration, his eyes squinting and his tongue poking from between his teeth. Bruce told Hulk to close his eyes, and gently ran a cloth over the crags and valleys of that huge and brutish face. Hulk took Bruce in one hand and lifted him effortlessly so that he could reach behind Hulk's ears.

"Are you seeing this?" Tony hissed. Steve didn't trust himself to answer.

"Down now," Bruce told the giant, and the hand lowered him gently to the floor, steadying him. Then Bruce rinsed his own mop of curls and shook himself out like a dog. Hulk harrumphed in protest.

"In Hulk's eyes!" he grumbled.

"Not just yours," Tony muttered, wiping at his face. "Totally part-spaniel."

"I thought I was a hedgehog." Bruce bent to strip water from his legs and stopped, his face rueful. Then he reached for a towel. "You get used to bathing without a towel, some of the places I've been. Thank you, Dummy. You were very helpful."

"Get lost, bucket of bolts," Tony said reflexively, the urge to insult his robot a seemingly Pavlovian reaction. Then he waved a hand in airy dismissal. "You can be both. You're a man of many parts."

"Two that I can name. Very witty."

"I try."

"Yes, you're very trying as well."

"Thank you, Sassypants. By the way, tighty whities are so 90's."

Bruce laughed quietly under his breath as he rubbed the towel through the hair over his bruised chest carefully, cautious of his healing ribs. "And here I've been so careful to stay fashionable. Hulk, would you say thank you to Dummy?"

"Thank you, Metal dummy," Hulk told the bot, and Dummy whirred at a much higher pitch, before turning the shower off. Hulk took a quick step backwards, and his massive brows furrowed. "Gone!"

"Experiment's over," Bruce said, and handed Hulk his bedsheet of a towel. "You're clean, I'm clean. Successful result all around."

"Metal dummy go," Hulk said, watching Dummy potter around the cell on his treads.

"Yes, but he'll be back eventually, knowing you," Bruce said wryly. "You don't stay clean for long."

Steve sat back and watched, a frown tugging at his lips. Bruce barely needed to prompt Hulk at all to bend down so that he could wipe the green face and hair free of excess water. Tony was right. Something was... odd. Not bad-odd. Just... odd.

"Something wrong?" Bruce finally said as Hulk clumsily pulled on the new pants – brown this time.

"Why would anything be wrong?" Tony asked innocently.

"Well, you're both here, and neither Hulk nor I are really much to look at in the shower," came the rather self-deprecating answer.

"You take that back," Tony scowled, and then his eyes slid to the side and he cleared his throat. "Hulk's definitely an eyeful. Hell, Hulk's two eyefuls."

"We came to see if you were all right after breakfast," Steve said truthfully, and got a dig in the ribs courtesy of Tony's elbow.

"Fine," Bruce said automatically, and then Hulk poked his back. "Ow!"

"Your better half doesn't think so, apparently," Tony said, his eyes narrowing speculatively.

Bruce glared up at Hulk, who glared back. Hulk's glare was better.

"All right, not fine," Bruce said, and his hand began to reach out, searching blindly. Hulk's fingers caught it and then began those little pats, those twisting fingers – Hulk performed the other half of Bruce's nervous tic as though it was a rehearsed act. Steve's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline.

"The Leader, Sterns," Bruce said, and Hulk rumbled ominously, his muscles swelling.

"Talky big head small man," he growled.

"I see you two have talked," Tony leaned forward on his boulder, his elbows leaning on his knees as he peered at Bruce.

"He deserves to know," Bruce said stiffly. Hulk glanced down at where his hand wrapped around Bruce's, engulfing it.

"Hulk protect Bruce, keep Bruce safe," he said.

"We know," Steve soothed. "We know."

"This isn't exactly coming at a good time for you," Tony said. "Just wanted to see if you were all right."

"Yes, I suppose we're all right," Bruce sighed. "It's... well. It's easier now that I've accepted what I am, I guess. I can lean on him. Reassuring him... helps me to deal with it as well. But this is really not a good time for us to be vulnerable with Sterns out there."

"You've really accepted it?" asked Tony, his eyes flickering with worry. He threw Steve a guarded look. "I mean, what I saw, last night..."

"Tony... I don't mind if Steve knows," Bruce said, but clearly he did mind. His back had stiffened.

"Knows what?" Steve asked.

"I, uh." Bruce untangled his hand from Hulk's and rubbed the back of his neck, his hair scattering random droplets of water onto his shoulders.

"Bruce not good," Hulk stepped in, scowling. "Hurt. Hulk made good. All better."

"I'm not quite following this," Steve confessed.

Bruce sighed again, and turned so he wasn't looking at the other two men, ducking away to face the floor. With no apparent self-consciousness he stripped off the wet pants and winced as it pulled at his injuries. Tony made a strangled noise in his throat. "I fell to pieces, basically. I've been struggling with what it meant to be Hulk, what it meant that he was me. Hulk put me back together."

"Oh." Steve dipped his head and thought about that. "Bruce..."

"It's all right, Cap." Bruce carefully pulled on a fresh pair of trousers – without underwear, apparently, which caused Tony to swallow hard for some reason – and the Hulk hovered over him, protective as a mother bird with one chick. "I think I'm coming to grips with it. I'm a monster, a freak, a killer, and a gaoler. So be it. But I'm other things too."

"You're a fucking genius and a hero," Tony snapped.

"A world-renowned scientist, an Avenger, a friend, a teammate," Steve listed.

"Bruce good," the Hulk growled.

"It really is all right," Bruce said, smiling uncomfortably. "You can stop there, I'm not so fragile that my ego needs boosting from you three."

"Your ego needs boosting 24/7, sulky," Tony retorted. "I'm thinking of hiring you an announcer just to recite your awesome every time you enter a room."

"That'd be contrary to the goal of keeping your tower intact."

"And you're a stealth sass master, can't forget that," Tony said, and smirked.

"I know as a team we don't... talk very much," Steve said as delicately as he dared. "But you know you can talk to us, right? We're friends. I'd listen to anything you have to say. We're here for you."

"Good to know," Bruce said, and the smile this time was genuine.

Tony made another little noise in his throat, but this one seemed rather frustrated.

Hulk was grinning as though it was Christmas, just above Bruce's head. He looked immensely pleased with something, and beamed around at them indiscriminately. Abruptly Steve was thoroughly unnerved.

Don't tell me that the Hulk is up to something as well?!

"Team," he boomed, his eyes crinkling happily. "Experiment! Hulk's experiment!"

"Junior's getting restless," Tony said dryly. "We'd better think of something pronto before he goes to Smashville."

"Actually," Bruce said, and glanced up at the beaming Hulk. "We were talking about that just before you came in."

"Oh?"

The physicist took a short, steadying breath and then gave a helpless shrug. "Is Thor free today, do you know?"


Natasha

Nicole Redman smiled politely as she waited for the desk clerk to check her ID. The man behind the counter gave her an appreciative glance, eyes lingering on her legs. Nicole Redman blushed a little, and then her smile turned uncomfortable. Nicole Redman was aware of her attractiveness, but insecure in using it.

Beside her, Curt Barnum snorted.

The desk clerk finally handed over their IDs and told them to enjoy their tour of the facilities. Nicole smiled again, and allowed her eyes to tilt in an awkward attempt at flirtation. The desk clerk grinned openly and mouthed, "I'm off at five," as he slid a business card over the counter towards her.

Nicole nodded shyly, picked it up with charmingly clumsy fingers, and laughed a little self-consciously when it took two tries. Nicole then stepped away with a quick look back over her shoulder at him. He fell back in his chair, looking pleased and a little poleaxed.

"That was a mean thing to do, Tasha," Curt Barnum chuckled in her ear.

Nicole looked up at him, wide-eyed – and Natasha allowed the corners of her mouth to turn up ever so slightly. "I made his day. I did a good thing."

"He's going to be crushed when you don't meet him after work."

"He'll get over it." She looked around the corridor, her eyes busy and professional, cataloguing entry points and possible weapons. "Downstairs."

It had taken next to no time to get to Chicago. Despite the fact that Stark waggled his jet enticingly at them every time they went on a covert operation, loudly citing 'Tax break!' and all the luxurious conveniences it offered, landing at an international airport by Stark's private plane was not exactly the most unobtrusive way to enter a city. But Banner's new teleport tech... now that was a spy's dream. He'd been willing to provide Clint and Natasha with two small prototypes of the gadget – a sort of harness that fit snugly beneath their clothes and generated a field over their bodies. They were apparently powered using cosmic rays, some sort of dark matter envelope based on that blue mutant's teleportation gift, and the same gamma-rads wave signature that had emanated from the Tesseract. They had a maximum capacity of three pre-plotted jumps, and a surprisingly long reach. The entire Eastern half of the United States was well within their reach in a matter of seconds.

Natasha considered that to be the essential difference between the scientists, really. Stark hid behind the flash and bombast of his public image, always making a grand and flashy entrance. His tech was just as flashy, a bombastic monument to his apparently enormous ego. And of course it was Banner who invented a machine to help him slide out of sight, out of reach and out of mind instantaneously.

The building they were ostensibly inspecting was one of Osborne's, but he was never around. Chicago wasn't one of his priority stops, and so the scientists and researchers that worked there were left to their own devices much of the time, answering to the New York facility every few months or so. The focus of the research was fairly benign compared to the extreme science-fiction that characterised the other Osborne scientific centres – the main thrust of the work was disease prevention and control in humans, animals and crops. Natasha thought Banner would rather enjoy working in a place like this. His own research and work in assisting developing nations dovetailed rather nicely.

It was too bad that underneath the building a gamma signature was pulsing steadily.

Clint swept the area with his raptor's gaze as she disabled the alarms to the emergency fire-stairs, and together they moved into the stairwell. Clint shrugged his suit jacket off and pulled out his gun, checking the clip.

"This is pretty damn easy, so far," he murmured.

"Sterns knows we're here," Natasha said, sloughing off the vestiges of Nicole Redman as she checked her own gun and charged her Widow's Bite. It whined in an ascending glissando as the power built up against her wrists, a comforting familiar feeling. "He'll have something up his sleeve." She didn't have to warn him to be careful and not get overconfident. Clint was a professional.

With silent footfalls they made their way down the fluorescent-lit stairs.

Reaching the bottom was anticlimactic. There was no sign of another entrance other than the emergency door to the street. She considered it as she clipped her gun back in its holster.

"What do you think?" Clint breathed soundlessly.

"Decoy," she said, and allowed her brows to draw together in a frown. "He's not here."

"You sure?"

"Any other gamma signatures in the area?"

"We're going to have to get Banner to track that," Clint said after a moment. "The only reason we thought he was here was because that stealth bird landed outside the city, and then this trace popped up."

"SHIELD's lab techs can't distinguish between a gamma source and a gamma decoy," she said, and let her head tip back in frustration. "Where are our brains? I can't believe we didn't see through this in minutes."

"To be fair, neither did Fury," Clint said and leaned against the wall.

It swivelled.

Natasha was honestly taken aback for a moment. A swivelling wall? Sterns may be a supergenius, but he obviously had an extremely clichéd sense of style. No-one did swivelling walls outside of the movies. It was almost embarrassing.

"Is this guy for real?" Clint mouthed soundlessly, his eyes incredulous. "Or the world's biggest Nancy Drew fan or something? A fake wall?"

She rolled her eyes at him in agreement, unclipped her gun once more, and held up her fingers to indicate that she would take point.

"Agent Romanov in," she muttered into her Stark-made lapel mic. "Secret tunnel underneath the building. I'm taking the lead. Hawkeye to cover. Over."

"Secret tunnel? Seriously?" came Hill's crackling answer over the earpiece.

"He's ugly and a loser," Clint said sourly. "A fake wall. It's a miracle there wasn't a bookshelf in front of it."

"Actually, I don't think this was Sterns," Natasha said, her eyes drifting over the dripping pipes and crumbling mortar. "This is old."

"Osborne, you think?"

"Must have been. You know as well as I do that the man is paranoid as hell."

"Somehow I can't see Norman Osborne being a fan of Nancy Drew. Enid Blyton is a faint possibility, though."

"Shut up, Clint."

"Here we go," Clint said, his keen eyes spotting something buried in the darkness. "I think this is the droid we're looking for."

Natasha flicked on her flashlight and scanned it over a bleeping device attached to the wall with some sort of bracket. It was glowing a disturbing – and familiar – green. "I don't think we should touch that."

"No shit."

"Agent Romanov," she said tersely into the mic. "Some sort of device here. It's glowing green. I think this is the gamma trace the lab monkeys picked up. Approximately three inches in diameter, circular, wired to an unknown energy source."

"Hold," Hill said. "Can you send visual?"

"On it," Clint said, pulling out his phone. It was a StarkPhone, all sleek lines and flashy gadgets. Natasha gave him a flat stare. "Oh, come off it Tasha, these are awesome, way better than the shit SHIELD gives us. I've even got a signal down here."

"Hawkeye's sending you the visual now," she said with an inaudible sigh, and switched off the mic.

As Clint took the photo, he said, "so what now?"

"We go back to the Tower, I suppose," she said, and stifled the surge of irritation.

"What a waste of time this was."

"You're telling me."

Clint was silent for a moment, and then he asked, "is it just me, or is the Tower sort of turning into the Bruce Banner show at the moment?"

Her eyes flicked over to him. He'd noticed. Of course, he was as highly trained as she was, but his skills lay in slightly different areas. He hadn't been given the brutal training in observation, the ability to read faces and bodies like books. Still, he had certain natural gifts when it came to being observant. "Not just you."

Clint shifted, putting his phone away. "Poor bastard."

She weighed her words carefully as she answered, "he seems to be coping."

Clint snorted again. "Yeah. Fucking amazing, if you ask me."

Natasha shifted her weight, knowing precisely what he was referring to. Neither she nor he were predisposed to opening up to anyone. It was part of the psychological makeup required of being a spy and assassin. To open up to another was to hand that person potential weapons with which to harm you. When she had spoken to Bruce that night, it had been the most she had shown of herself to anyone who wasn't Clint in almost eight years.

And it had been excruciating.

To watch Bruce sit there, small and rumpled and calm with yellow paint flaking on his nose, telling them the deepest and most painful secrets of his soul... it had been like watching a man casually breaking open his ribcage and exposing his still-beating heart.

Clint was no better. He never gave anything of himself away that he didn't mean to, holding his past and his secrets just as close to his chest as she did. They didn't trust easily. Natasha knew that she was the only human being Clint trusted enough to be weak in front of, and she felt much the same way. Their bond was almost a tangible thing, had been forged over years and years. The memory sparked through her; Clint, after Loki, his eyes anguished and so lost, struggling against his bonds, terror-sweat dripping down his brow, soft hair flattened against his head. She had stayed, of course. He would never forgive someone else for witnessing his moment of weakness.

Bruce had invited them to watch.

"Tasha?"

Oh, and Clint always knew when she was unsettled. No-one else had ever pierced her barriers so far or so thoroughly. No-one else had ever seen under her layers of masks. She knew her expression was unreadable, but Clint could read her, every time. Those far-seeing eyes.

She sometimes wondered what they were to each other. Not love, no. Love was for children, and they had never been lovers. It was more than that. They kept each other's backs and each other's secrets. He had saved her from a world of cold whispers and darkness and death. She owed him everything.

"It's..." she began, and drew on her Black Widow persona to give her the strength to continue. "I gave him something. Of myself."

Clint's eyes widened. "You mean..."

"No, not that." She rolled her eyes. "Idiot."

His mouth twitched. "Right, sorry. So what, then?"

She turned back to look at the stupid gamma macguffin, turmoil rolling around her chest and stomach. She knew that her face betrayed nothing: neutral, professional. She also knew it was of no use when it came to Clint. "I told him... I'm learning to care for them. I'm learning to trust them. The team. Him. He reminded me of... of. How I was. You remember."

Clint's mouth parted slightly, and then he folded his arms, leaning against a pipe in a purposefully casual pose. She knew it was in order to make her more comfortable with the conversation – and knowing that, it didn't work. "You usually avoid Bruce."

"Yes. But..." she trailed off. Even taking into consideration her violent brush with the Hulk and her general avoidance of the man, Bruce had quietly crept underneath her fences. He was so, well. Kind. Patient. Guilty. And so very, very angry. They were alike in many ways.

"You actually opened up to him? Not something you've got a lot of prior with."

"No."

"You really told him that?"

She glared at him for a second. "Yes."

"Shit, Tasha."

"I know."

"I don't know if I could... unbend... that much."

Her lips curved into a smile. "But you do care."

He gave a swift, uncomfortable shrug. "I guess. You work with people for two years..."

"... you get to know them pretty well," she finished.

"You know, Stark didn't take advantage," he said, suddenly thoughtful. "I drew... well, in one of Hulk's little kiddy classes. We were painting."

"The yellow paint."

"Right, and I drew... something from my past. Stark saw, and he didn't take the piss. He wasn't even that much of a dick."

"Stark's not that much of a dick."

"He does a very convincing Stark-Is-A-Dick act."

"He's been in deep-cover for years," she smiled. "You've seen what's happening with him and Bruce?"

"Could a blind man miss it?"

"He doesn't even know."

"I know. It's better than watching Steve's face."

"Are we actually gossiping about our coworkers?" She raised an eyebrow at him. Clint grinned.

"Yeah. We need a water-cooler. Wanna buy a water-cooler with me?"

At that moment, Natasha's mic hissed and Hill's voice came to her ears. "Okay, the lab boys tell me that this thing is safe to transport in a lead-lined container."

"We don't have a lead-lined container," Natasha said, and opposite her Clint rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Duh," he said.

"Leave the device where it is," Hill said. "I'll send Morse and Sitwell to collect it. Good work locating it. No other clues?"

"Zip, zilch, nada." Clint pulled a disgusted face. "I've swept the area. Nothing else here except mildew."

Natasha didn't question when or how he'd searched the short tunnel. Clint's vision was legendary. "We'll be porting directly back to the Tower," she told Hill. "Widow over and out."

"Report due tomorrow, Agent Barton," Hill said sternly. "Don't make me get Fury."

Natasha smiled as Clint grunted dismissively. "You'd be more effective if you threatened him with Steve's disappointment."

"Noted," Hill said. "On his file from now on. Have a good trip back, you two."

"Now I'm gonna get Steve's sad face every time I skip out on paperwork. I hate you," Clint muttered as Natasha pulled out the earpiece and thumbed off the mic. She tossed the flashlight to him as she readied the teleport-beacon, and he thrust it into his pocket and did the same.

"Yes, you've said before." She regarded the glowing green thing in the wall. "We should request that this thing get sent to Stark's labs. The obvious person to study this is..."

"Bruce," Clint finished, and sighed. "Back to your regularly scheduled Bruce Banner show."

"He likes things like this. Science puzzles. It relaxes him."

"Better him than me," Clint said sourly, and followed her into the fizzing, buzzing static of the 'port.


Bruce

"Are you sure?" Bruce asked as Tony bustled about, clearing the gym by variously shouting at JARVIS, shouting at his bots and shouting indiscriminately.

"Sure I'm sure, this is going to be fantastic," he puffed when he finally took a breath. "Thor's on board, he's waiting upstairs. Actually, he seemed sort of eager to blow off a little steam. Looks like the last time we fought Loki struck a nerve, plus he hasn't been to see Doctor Tiny Foster in a month thanks to that astrophysics nerd-orgy in Switzerland and all of his Asgard ceremonial stuff. Guy's tense. I think he'd welcome a bit of fisticuffs, Hulk-style."

"Hulk has three days left of his trial period," Bruce said dubiously. "Fury's not going to like it."

"Fury doesn't need to know."

"Hulk's a little difficult to hide, Tony."

"He's not even going out of the Tower, and if we put Thor and him in the cell we'll end up with the world's most indestructible adamantium lightning chamber. That doesn't exactly sound inconspicuous to me."

"I know, I know," Bruce scrubbed his hand over his face. "Well, I'll go get him, then."

"Then lab?" Tony looked up from directing You towards the walls and grinned. "All this Hulk stuff, you've been letting the important things slide, pookie. You've gotta be excited to get back to work now that your brain's working properly again."

To his surprise, Bruce found that he actually was. His fingers itched for a keyboard. "Sure."

Tony's grin broadened. "Awesome."

Bruce took the elevator down to Hulk, tracing steps that had now become routine. Punching the code into the door's keypad took less than a second, and when it slid open Hulk was waiting, shifting from one foot to the other. "Out?" he rumbled eagerly.

"Yes, we're going out," Bruce confirmed, and lifted his hand to Hulk's face. The rough, unbelievably thick skin with its steel-wool stubble met his palm, and Hulk made a deep sound of contentment. "No rushing, though, and remember your Rules and your experiments. You have to be good."

"Good," Hulk echoed, and nodded against Bruce's hand. "Rule One, no scare no smash. Rule Two, mistakes okay. Rule Tree, say sorry, all over."

Remembering Natasha and the tantrum from that morning, Bruce's mouth twitched a little. "In the interests of keeping the noise down, it might be time to have another Rule."

"More?" Hulk blew out an explosive breath. "More Rule?"

"It looks like it's needed, Hulk. How's this," and he felt an ironic smirk tugging at his lips, "you don't always get what you want."

Hulk scowled, lips peeling back from his teeth. "Rule stupid."

"But true," Bruce said sourly.

"Tasha said."

"That's right."

Hulk glanced back at his counting experiment. "Four. Not always get what Hulk wants." Then he snarled, low and menacing. "Hulk no like dumb rule."

"No-one ever does," Bruce sighed. "But it's one of the important ones." And one that both you and I know deep in our bones.

Hulk's nose wrinkled. "Fine. Rule Four."

"Well done," Bruce praised him. "We can go out now."

"Out!" The Hulk span on one foot, fast and deadly, to eye the open door with enthusiastic delight. "Hulk goes out! Hulk free!"

"We have to come back here, remember," Bruce cautioned him. "But yes, today we're going out."

Hulk frowned. "Run to the safe places, green places?"

Bruce blinked, and then remembered Hulk's tendency to flee into forests and woodlands to hide from the tanks and guns that hounded him every single time he woke. "No, not there. We're going up to see Tony." And Thor, he added in his mind with a wince. Oh god, this was entirely crazy.

Hulk huffed and settled back to follow Bruce to the elevator. He had to bend down to fit through the doors and the metal floor creaked and sagged underneath his feet. When it began to move he let out a bark of alarm, the whites of his eyes showing. It took all of Bruce's powers of persuasion to stop him from punching a hole in the wall and opening the carriage like a sardine tin. Hulk was still extremely unsettled when the doors opened on the gymnasium level, and growled loudly as the elevator closed behind them.

"Shh, gone now," said Bruce, trying to project calm. At least that was something he had a lot of experience with.

"Hulk HATE stupid moving room!"

"It's gone," Bruce said again, before regarding Hulk with a wry smile. "I think we'll take the stairs next time."

"Hey, you two!" Tony said cheerfully, before whirling on You and snapping, "no, the other left. Your left. See the... look, follow where I'm pointing. Where I'm pointing. Can you do that? Fuck, I am so melting you down and making ashtrays out of you."

The bot tilted its 'head' almost mockingly, a pile of punching bags loaded on its back. It whirred and then turned its back on its creator with a slightly huffy air and trundled towards the indicated door. "Smartass," Tony muttered.

"Dissent in the ranks?" Bruce said lightly.

"I didn't program smartassery," Tony held up his hands in innocence. "It's been hanging around you too long, that's gotta be it."

"Oh, blame me, of course," Bruce deadpanned, and turned back to Hulk. "What do you think? Is it good?"

"Good..." Hulk said slowly, looking around the now-empty gym. "Big. Much bigger. Big for Hulk!"

"That's right," Tony said, walking towards them as the bots pulled the doors shut behind them. He bent down to whisper in Bruce's ear, "he's upstairs. I told him to wait."

"Good idea," Bruce whispered back, eyeing Hulk nervously. This was probably the worst decision he'd ever made - and he'd famously decided to irradiate himself.

"Hulk?" he began, and then bit down on his lip. "Remember what we were talking about before the rain experiment?"

Hulk broke off looking around the echoing, empty space, his brutish brow furrowing. "Outside?"

"Yes," Bruce confirmed. "But we were going to meet someone. Remember who?"

"Shooty Bird and Tasha gone," Hulk said, miffed. He took a few steps further into the gym, his hand resting on the floor. "What do now?"

"Agent Scary gets her name as well?" Tony jerked back in surprise.

"Apparently," Bruce answered, frustrated.

Tony huffed. "But I wanted to be the only one!"

"Rule Four," Hulk said smugly.

"Whu..." Tony raised his eyebrows at Bruce, who bit down on his lip again – although this time it was to stop a laugh from escaping. "Rule Four. He got another one?"

"Just before we left the cell. Rule Four. Hulk?"

"Not always get what Hulk wants," Hulk said sulkily, and then he scowled like a thundercloud.

"You...! Cheeky, both of you, fucking cheeky," Tony muttered, and stalked away with a faintly injured air.

"Well, it's not Clint or Natasha," Bruce said, resuming the conversation where they had been interrupted. "Who else is there?"

Hulk looked at Bruce for a long second, and then Tony. His eyes became calculating, classifying. Bruce could almost hear the internal monologue: Bruce, Tony-Metal-Man...not Shooty Bird. Not Tasha-Red-Black. Star Man?

Sure enough, Hulk offered, "Star Man?"

"I'm afraid he had to go to a meeting, big guy," Tony said, ignoring Bruce with aplomb. Bruce smiled to himself.

"So who's left?" he prompted his greener half. And braced himself.

Hulk didn't disappoint. There was the expected moment of cognitive connection as Hulk drew on the memories and placed them into context, and then—

"HULK NO WANT SHOUTY LONG HAIR AND HIS STUPID HAMMER!"

"Rule Four!" Bruce snapped, holding his good hand over his ear. Ow, ow, ow. God, but Hulk was loud.

Hulk panted, glaring at Bruce. Bruce simply held his gaze, not turning or blinking. He was stronger than Hulk in this. He always had been. Hulk was the physical manifestation of strength, but Bruce had held him down with sheer mental dominance for years. When it came to a clash of wills, Bruce was always going to be the stronger.

Eventually Hulk's eyes turned to the floor, and his jaw jutted out in grudging, pugnacious acceptance. "Not want Shouty Long Hair yet. Shouty Long Hair?" he grumbled. "Now?"

"You agreed, Hulk," Bruce said relentlessly. Hulk grunted and sat down with a thunderous boom, his hands clenching.

"Fine. Rule One. Sorry. Rule Tree," he muttered, and then shook his head. "Too many rules!"

"Who's he calling shouty?" Tony said, wiggling a finger in his ear. "JARVIS, can you let Thor know we're in the gym, and the Hulk is with us? Tell him to get his godlike ass down here. Really be clear about the Hulk part, that's important."

"Certainly Sir. Mr Odinson is en-route currently."

Bruce glanced at Tony and a shared moment that consisted of 'this is totally insane' passed between them. Tony's face was excited, a little flushed – and Bruce was incredibly nervous. This was further than they'd gone before.

"All right," he said, and Hulk's eyes snapped back to him. "This is the experiment for today. You agreed to see Thor-"

"Shouty Long Hair."

"—right, and we thought it might be a good opportunity for you to let go a bit, considering you've been locked away in a cell for a week." Bruce looked back at Tony for reassurance, and received a thumbs-up and a 'go on!' in response. "I know you don't get on," Bruce continued, a little more sternly. "But he is good. He's a friend. And he likes to fight just as much as you do."

Hulk sat very still for a few seconds, before his expression slowly cleared. "Fight?" he echoed. Then a vicious smile that spoke eloquently of impending violence spread over his face. "Smash?"

Bruce took a breath. "Yes."

Hulk roared in triumph and delight. "Hulk smash!"

"But!" Bruce held up his hand again. The giant stopped, looking uncertain, and Bruce stepped forward and laid it on Hulk's bunched muscles. "You're not trying to hurt each other. It's just for fun. It's play. Play. Remember? Not trying to hurt each other."

"Not trying to smash puny god to hurt," Hulk said, tilting his head. "Smash. No hurt?"

"Don't hurt him," Bruce said and gently stroked that huge arm, easily as thick as his own torso. "He won't hurt you, not really. It's all in fun."

"Fun," Hulk echoed. "Fun. Fun is good?"

"Yes," Bruce said, and his heart clenched. That little boy, the three-year-old inside that monster didn't know what fun was. Nearly forty years ago, the little boy he had been hadn't known what fun was either. "Fun is good." I promise, I promise it is. You'll find out.

"No hurt. Play. Fun. Fun is good."

"Very good," Bruce stroked Hulk's arm again, and Hulk gave him a satisfied look.

"Hulk smash," he said, grinning broadly.

Tony choked a laugh. "Yeah, Green Machine, you get to smash all right."

At that moment, the doors burst open. "I came as swiftly as I could, my friends. Is it..."

Hulk roared, his eyes glittering with mischief. "Hulk SMASH!"

"Great Odin's ghost," Thor blurted, and ducked smoothly underneath the arm that came whistling through the air at him. He turned and paused, his hammer held at the ready.

"Whoopsie-daisy, bit of premature annihilation there, happens to the best of us," Tony said in a far-too-bright tone. "Hey Hulkster, give us a mo. We need to let Shouty Long Hair catch his breath before you two go have your fun."

Hulk blinked, and then turned accusing eyes on Bruce. "But Bruce say Hulk could..."

"I think Shouty Long Hair needs to be reminded," Tony said. "Uh, Thor?"

"What is this?" Thor asked suspiciously. "Do we not battle now?"

"Um," Bruce said, and smiled helplessly.

"Your artificial mind informed me that the Hulk was here and you required me," Thor said, shrugging, his bright hair ruffled from his brief exertion. "Were we not to spar, the green beast and I?"

"Well, yes," Bruce said. "We're just trying to make sure that everyone here understands the concept of sparring."

"Ah," Thor said thoughtfully, before turning to Hulk. His face betrayed a certain amount of understandable wariness; Hulk had a habit of punching him or throwing him through walls during battles if he got too close. "We are not enemies, you and I," he said to Hulk almost formally. "I would be honoured to spar with you, to test my mettle and strength against your might."

Hulk's expression was thoroughly confused, and he growled under his breath. "What Shouty Long Hair say?"

Thor blinked. "Ah... I am not your enemy?"

"Stupid Shouty Long Hair hit Hulk," Hulk said, his arms swelling and his face darkening. "Stupid Shouty Long Hair's stupid annoying hammer hit Hulk, harder than anyone ever hit Hulk."

Thor bowed slightly. "You flatter me."

"He really doesn't," Bruce said.

"Hulk hates stupid annoying hammer," Hulk grumbled. "Hulk strongest there is. Hulk not pick up stupid annoying hammer. Hate hammer!"

"Probably a good thing he's getting some smash-time," Tony murmured. Bruce looked up at the broad green features twisted in frustration and anger and privately agreed.

"They're going to tear up your gym," he sighed.

"Like I care. This is going to be fucking phenomenal."

Thor was evidently retuning his brain from Radio Asgard to Hulk FM. "We are friends," he said in a far clearer tone of voice. "We will fight each other, but it is not in order to hurt each other. Just a test of each other's strength."

Hulk snorted. "Stupid. Hulk told Shouty Long Hair. Hulk strongest there is."

"And I have this," Thor twisted his wrist, Mjolnir flashing in the light. "We do not fight in order to hurt each other. It is..." he broke off, obviously searching for the words.

"For fun," Hulk offered.

Thor gave Hulk his expansive and brilliant smile. "Aye, for fun."

"Are you two ready?" Tony asked, and then rubbed his hands together. "Oh, man. This is going to be completely sublime, you know what? This is even better than that kickass dream I had when I was eleven about Darth Vader fighting a T-Rex."

"You are a child," Bruce said, shaking his head and smiling, a warm fondness sweeping through him. It seemed that no matter how dangerous the situation or how hard Bruce pushed him away, Tony was always there. Of course, he was generally there saying something off-colour or inappropriate. "Hulk is more mature than you."

"Hey, I resemble that remark."

"Hulk has been good. Hulk want to smash!" Hulk punctuated this with a crash of his fist against the floor.

"When I say we have to stop, you have to stop," Bruce warned him. Hulk rolled his eyes.

"Hulk will stop if Hulk ever start."

"Cheeky," Tony snickered. "Okay, fuck, JARVIS, roll camera or whatever, you'd better be recording this."

Thor raised his hammer and his smile filled with that wild, gleeful fire so familiar from a hundred battles. "Have at thee!" he bellowed, and the hammer went flying at Hulk's head.

Hulk's answering grin was feral. "Hulk SMASH!" he roared, and then it was on.

Hulk ducked the flying hammer and snorted contemptuously at it, before turning back to Thor with a clear challenge in his eyes. With a joyous laugh, Thor leapt through the air to land one, two punches against the Hulk's solid jaw. Hulk shook his head and his teeth bared in a snarl. He whirled with that uncanny speed to backhand the god across the room, and Thor went skidding, his heels dragging long furrows in the floor.

"Now this is a fight," Tony breathed.

"You're actually insane," Bruce groaned.

"That's rich coming from you, Brucey-boy."

Hulk gathered himself and jumped, his bulk flying with deceptive ease to land where Thor had been only a second ago. His knee sank into the wood, buckling it. He grunted, confused, and then Thor was landing devastating hammer-blows on his shoulders and chest.

"Come, friend, show me!" Thor laughed, and sent his hammer hurtling deep into the Hulk's solar plexus.

Hulk shook off the blow with a grunt and stood, his hands opening threateningly. "No thunderclaps!" Bruce called hurriedly. Hulk shot him a resentful glare, but lifted his hands high above his head and brought his fists down onto the gym floor with a resounding crash instead.

"Not that either," Bruce groaned, and hid his face.

The noise was tremendous. A furrow of buckling wood skittered along the floor from the point of impact to upset Thor's balance, and he struggled to stay upright.

And then Hulk punched him solidly into a wall. He was embedded at least a foot into the gyprock and plaster, his face slack and stunned. "What a blow!" he said dazedly.

"Fight!" Hulk smashed his hands against his chest. "Shouty Long Hair say Hulk show. Hulk show Shouty Long Hair!"

"He sure did," Tony murmured admiringly.

"They're going to rip your Tower in half," Bruce grated. "The floor!"

"So not important right now," Tony replied, irritation rising in his eyes. "Watch them. Really watch."

Bruce turned back to see Thor struggling out of the crumbling mess that had been the wall, his hand reaching for Mjolnir and grasping the handle reflexively as it flew to his grasp. Hulk's snarl was pure fury.

Thor wiped at his nose, and inspected the small droplets of blood with a strange half-smile. "Magnificent," he breathed in his deep voice. "Truly. Do we continue?"

Hulk drew himself up to his full height, tipped his head back, and roared at the ceiling. The very air shook with the power in it.

Thor readjusted his grip on Mjolnir, and then the two of them crashed into each other like continents. Bruce's breath caught, his heart somewhere up in his throat. "They're going to kill each other."

"Are you kidding?"

"They're..."

"Bruce. Just. Look at them," Tony whispered.

Like a jolt of static electricity to the brain, Bruce got it. Hulk's face was still contorted in that insane snarl, but he was swinging his mammoth fists with an almost carefree abandon. There was utter freedom in that movement, a frenzied wild happiness that the Hulk could not exist without. Thor was grinning fiercely as he brought his hammer down onto Hulk's elbow. Then he took hold of one giant green arm and sent the Hulk tumbling head over heels in a display of prodigious strength. As he crashed into the (destroyed) floor, Hulk let out a roar that was half a sneer, flipping himself with that deceptive speed and slapping against the floor with open palms as though saying, 'you'll have to do better than that!'

"They're enjoying it," he said faintly.

"Fuck yeah, they're enjoying it," Tony said, pleased as Punch and twice as smug. "Uh, so, this is where I say I told you so? Again? I have a dance routine now, you know."

"I will hurt you," Bruce promised him absently, watching his savage self wrestling the God of Thunder with a strange dizzy feeling. He would not look away. This was part of him too, this unfettered freedom and brutality, this joy in unconfined violence. This was all part of him.

Thor was openly laughing, his face suffused in fierce elation as he wielded the hammer against the Hulk's invulnerable skin. Dimly Bruce realised that Thor probably didn't get the chance to cut loose very often. He was stronger and vastly more powerful than any other being on the planet – except Hulk. He had duties and responsibilities towards two very different realms, travelling between them practically every week. He was often bemused and annoyed by Midgardian culture and traditions, which had led to some spectacular public faux-pas and a reputation for being genial and well-meaning, but slow-witted - it wasn't in the least true, but it had to be aggravating. He hadn't seen his lady for at least a month, due to her scientific obligations and his own princely duties.

No wonder the guy needed to work off some tension.

Hulk pried Thor from around his neck and threw him into another wall with a snarl of satisfaction. Thor didn't allow the setback to daze him this time, having evidently prepared for the impact. He launched from the broken plaster with a bellow of, "for Asgard!" to swing his foot underneath Hulk's legs and topple him before the hammer came down for a blow directly on the Hulk's unprotected face.

Bruce's breath stopped.

Hulk's roars became a scream of outrage and he immediately punched upwards with one boulder-like fist. Thor was sent tumbling through the air yet again, hair and hammer flying wild, to land on his stomach against the broken floor with a heavy thud. He bounced a few times Bruce noted vaguely, trying to breathe against his panic.

Hulk stood slowly and with menacing intent, shards of wood sliding from his shoulders and clattering to the ground. He walked with deadly purpose and booming footsteps to where the god struggled to push himself upright. Thor eventually slumped back onto his stomach, his eyes hazy, as the Hulk loomed threateningly above him with an expression of sheer wrath. Bruce's tongue caught between his teeth and he couldn't find the words, just couldn't. Hulk wasn't going to hurt him. Hulk wasn't going to hurt him. Hulk wasn't going to kill him.

He hates Thor. You're a killer. He's killed before. So have you.

The Hulk looked back at where Bruce stood, and some of the insane fury left his eyes. He grunted.

Then he sat down on Thor's back and crossed his thick legs like a child listening to stories.

Tony squeaked and his hand clapped over his mouth.

Hulk prodded the hammer where it lay with a giant finger, disgust on his face as it refused to move. Then he shifted a little, and Thor's strangled wheeze could be clearly heard.

Hulk glanced down, and then grinned at the two men in the corner. "Hulk wins. Fun. Food now?"


Hey all, hope you liked! Huzzah for Natasha POV! No Hulk POV or Tony POV, sorry - coming up soon, though!

Hulk SMISH reviewers!