Harrgh blagh urk. RL was a bit hairy there, but I am back! Here is the next chapter, and as a mea culpa it is extra long. Hope you enjoy!

Not mine. *sob*

Chapter Fourteen


Natasha

"Guuuuuys! Little help?!"

Stark's – no, Tony now, he was Tony – holler shocked Natasha out of her contemplation of the possible sites in New York they had yet to visit.

"GUUUYS!"

Uh-oh.

"We've got a big green situation here!" And then Tony's voice cut off with an ugly croak.

"Shit!" Clint swore, standing with his normal fluid grace and nocking and drawing an arrow in one smooth movement. He span and faced the cabin, and Natasha's heart leapt into her throat as a primal growl echoed through the air. It locked her muscles for a moment, her pulse pounding in her ears.

That deep and vicious growl had brought back jagged flashes of memory, red-tinged and raw, of her nightmarish flight through the bowels of the helicarrier. No, she had learned to put that away. She trusted Bruce – she trusted Hulk. She had told them as much – and that trust had cost her so much to learn. She would not throw it aside.

She forced herself to remain present and in the moment. An assassin trapped in past fears was a useless tool, a knife without a blade. She would put them behind her.

She was very good at putting her fears behind her.

Still, that horrible sound had brought home to her how much Hulk had changed – how very much he had learned and grown in his short time as an independent being, simply through interacting with the team and with Bruce. This was the growl of an apex killer, not the grumble of a friend. So different. So different to the way Hulk was... or had been, these last weeks.

He'd truly reverted. No. No. Natasha wouldn't accept that.

She was also very good at changing the facts.

All this flashed through her mind in a matter of moments as she whirled to take a ready stance, her Widow's Bite charging at her wrists and her eyes hard, Steve readying his shield beside her. The sight before them was one to take her breath away.

Hulk had gripped Tony by the neck and had slammed him against the wall of the quinjet. He was pinned there, his feet dangling off the ground and his hands clutching desperately at the giant green fingers that were inexorably tightening. The Hulk's eyes were alive with visceral wrath. He seemed to swell with rage as he glared at the man helpless in his grasp.

"Is he..." Clint blurted.

"He's gone," Steve said, his Captain's voice firmly in place. His own eyes were calculating, assessing.

"He's not," she snapped back, though the evidence before them was a little hard to contradict.

Still, Natasha was an expert on cornered animals. She'd been one, once. "Bring him back," she hissed.

"Widow, he's gone! Look at his eyes!" Steve lifted his shield and nodded curtly at Thor, who was ready and waiting across from them. "On my mark, Clint."

"Try to talk to him," Natasha urged Steve.

Clint sighted along his arrow. "Tasha, didn't you hear him? Talking won't help," he said matter-of-factly. "I have the shot, I can put him under."

"Guys!" Tony rasped, pulling at the Hulk's fingers some more and attempting to lengthen his neck to gain some air. "Please... just... talk... to..."

Hulk snarled like a prehistoric predator, his breath washing over Tony and blowing his hair away from his face.

Thor had his hammer raised, eyeing Hulk warily. From the way his arm was lifted, he was still somewhat injured. He wouldn't be able to take Hulk on.

Natasha studied Hulk's furious green eyes as her mind raced, considering angles of attack and discarding plans like a machine. Despite the storm of rage brewing there, his eyes were flat, like a shark's. Empty and dark. There was an abyss in those eyes.

If they tranked the Hulk, they lost Bruce entirely. This whole plan now rested on the strange connection between the two halves, and it was useless with one half of the picture doped to the eyeballs.

Change the facts.

"Open the cargo bay doors," she said suddenly.

"Gnngh!" Tony managed, and his feet scrabbled at the wall.

"Open them," she repeated. "Clint."

"Natasha, that's nuts! That's New York!" Steve said, his eyes bulging.

"Now!" she snapped.

"Tasha, I'm putting him under," Clint said, and she shook her head.

"We lose our line to Bruce if you do," she said, and gave him a hard look. "Open. The cargo bay. Doors."

Steve looked at her as though she was insane. "Let him out? Natasha, Fury's going to skin us alive as it is... we'll be unleashing a berserker Hulk on eight million people!"

"Again," added Clint sourly, his arrow-point unwavering.

She looked back at Hulk who, strangely, hadn't moved. He was simply holding Tony against the wall of the jet and snarling. "We follow him," she said.

"Do... it," Tony croaked.

Steve was shaking his head. "No, this is..."

Fuck it. You want something done, do it yourself. She took two strides and pulled the damned lever above the pilot's seat, and met Steve's eyes as she did so. The doors unfolded outwards, the wind whipping through the cabin and tugging at them with insistent force.

Hulk roared and dropped Tony in a heap, and with one of his insanely huge bounds – he was gone.

"Aw, Hulk," said Clint mournfully.

"We've lost him," said Steve, sounding shocked.

"Fuck!" Clint said, and threw his bow down with a lot more force than necessary (extremely unlike him. He must really be pissed if he was treating his bow that way). He took the controls again, his hands flying as the bay doors swung shut and the quinjet banked, following the Hulk's trajectory.

Steve gave her a deadly look before rushing over to the crumpled Tony and checking him for damage.

The man coughed and spluttered, his hand flying to his abused throat. "M'fine," he rasped. Then, "Ow."

"Are you okay?" Steve asked.

"What, are y' deaf?" Tony said, and coughed some more. "Said... I was fine. Ow. Ow ow ow. Fine - but ow."

"Operate the mechanism. Open the doors once more," Thor commanded, giving Natasha a level look that spoke of his anger more eloquently than any amount of shouting. "I will follow and retrieve him."

"Retrieve him," said Clint disbelievingly. "The Hulk. Retrieve him. Shyeaaaaaah."

"No," Tony wheezed, and then waved Steve away. He pulled himself up the wall. "We follow him. Natasha's right – we dope Hulk, we lose Bruce. He's our only decent lead."

"Fury is going to hit the roof," Steve said, and rubbed his eyes.

"Fury can suck my-"

"Tony," Steve grated.

"I'll handle Fury," she said. "This was my call."

"Been nice knowing you," Clint said.

"Hulk isn't going to kill anyone," she said with a confidence she didn't feel.

"That wasn't just show," Tony said, rubbing his throat. He sounded like a very talented Tom Waits impersonator. "Anything gets in his way..."

"That is the fucking city of New fucking York," Clint said. "And we just dropped the Hulk on them."

"Not the first time it's happened," she said, and raised her chin, daring him.

"We should be out there," Thor said, his hammer twitching in his hand. "We must protect them."

"Hang on," Tony said, and lurched to his suit; it was the Mark V again, and he threw the suitcase to the floor and continued to speak even as it closed around him like a mechanical glove. "Thor, you and me should be out there, sure, and we do the whole protect the people thing – but we also give Hulk a distraction." He broke off and coughed a little, and the mask closed over his face, turning them into mechanical barks. "We give him a direction. We need to get him moving to where his instincts want him to go, with minimum smash and maximum speed."

Steve blinked, and then drew himself up. "Right. Draw his focus every time he looks like he's about to smash something he shouldn't. We'll be behind you. Clint..."

"Natasha should do it, since she's so good at opening doors," Clint muttered as he pulled the lever again. The wind forced them all to shield their faces as Iron Man launched, closely followed by Thor.

"Clint," she said, and knew he could hear her own fears in her voice.

"Okay, right," he sighed, and his hands gripped the stick tighter. "You made the call." He pulled a face. "I hate operating on blind faith. Indiana Jones I am not."

"He's proved he can be trusted," she murmured, and her hand hovered over Clint's short, mussed hair.

"You?" he snorted. "Hang on, you trust someone? You? Wait, wait, I have to concentrate now, there is a high likelihood of airborne bacon..."

"Smartass."

"Sorry, I thought you just said that you, Black Widow, trusted someone..."

"I can kill you forty eight ways using only my teeth."

"Fuck, that's hot. Shutting up now."

A thick silence fell as they peered out of the windscreen at the falling night, the city twinkling before them like a glittering field of

"He's Bruce," she said eventually. "I trust Bruce."

Steve's mouth was set pugnaciously, but his eyes were troubled. "He slammed Tony against..."

"He's still Bruce."

"I want to trust him," Steve said, his jaw rippling as he spoke and his breath coming rather fast through his nostrils. "I want to trust them. But Hulk is unstable right now, and..."

"I did what had to be done," she said, her voice hard. "We couldn't contain him, and we need him to find Bruce."

"And so you unleashed him on New York," Clint said dryly. "I'd bow to you, ooh, soooo sarcastically. If I thought you wouldn't kill me."

"Enough," said Steve sternly. "Clint, just follow them."

Clint's face fell into stony lines as he took the quinjet into a steep dive. Natasha could read him better than any language, and knew that his agitation was not a product of her precipitous action; after all, gods knew he could react faster than lightning to any given situation. Rather, it was worry that was edging his tone and sharpening his words. Worry for Bruce, for Hulk, for the city below.

She'd done the right thing. She knew she had. Hulk had no interest in the people of New York, and as long as no idiot tried to stop him, he'd home in on Bruce like a huge angry pigeon.

Wonderful, now she had the strangest mental image. Clint's nervous flippancy was clearly contagious.

She put a hand against his shoulder. The heavy archery muscles were tense and rock-hard. He glanced up at her once, his lips tight and set. She ensured that her face was blank, neutral, and returned the look with steady calm.

He sighed again, his shoulders relaxing a little as he flew on, buildings looming before them. The familiar sound of roaring echoed from the streets below, and a green shape sprang through the darkening sky, moving to the south-east. Two smaller, faster shapes followed.

"Got 'em," Steve breathed. "Stay on him."

"This is the most bizarre game of Follow the Leader ever," Clint muttered.

"Even more than Cairo?" she murmured, and his lips tilted despite himself.

"Yeah. No gamma monsters in Cairo."

"That we know of," she added.

"Don't, you'll jinx us."

Steve gave her a hard, weighted look. "I hope we don't end up regretting this."

She didn't bother turning her head to return it. "I repeat. If nothing gets in his way, he'll lead us straight to Bruce," she said.

"And if something gets in his way?"

"Tony and Thor can make sure that doesn't happen."

"Hang on, Stark is Tony now? How many people are you trusting these days? I suddenly feel less special," Clint interjected, and then he shook his head, refocusing on the three swerving dots bounding and pinballing amongst the buildings below. "Sorry, sorry, back to work. Priorities."

"You'd better hope they can," Steve said under his breath, and pulled down his cowl.


Bruce

He had to time this carefully.

Bruce sat and dozed for a while, watching through slitted eyes, as Sterns pottered around his developing machine. He'd certainly managed to get hold of some serious equipment. The bomb itself was deceptively small, a cylinder approximately the size of an old-fashioned wine barrel, surrounded by banks and banks of monitoring screens and computers. Currently, Sterns was using his telekinesis to lower a transparent dome of some description over the bomb. It shone in weird ways as it drifted down.

Hmm. Pretty.

He was now almost totally numb. It felt rather like swimming in frigid waters, only it was his mind that had become anaesthetised instead of his limbs.

Think think think think think...

So. Finally a shield of some sort. That implied that the gamma bomb (without a coolant, how fucking insane was that) was indeed throwing out radiation. God only knew how much he'd already soaked up. His body was utterly human now, and pathetic, and puny. He could expect radiation poisoning to set in around five to eight hours from now.

Sterns wasn't as unaffected by the rads as he liked to pretend. There was a noticeable shifting of the veins in his forehead (which was unnecessarily gross in Bruce's opinion). His skin seemed to darken as he hunched over the bomb, staining the sickly green with a colour closer to Hulk's familiar tones.

He missed Hulk, even through the icy numbness. Bruce had never thought it possible, but he missed Hulk, and not just for the sake of the clarity and emotional stability he afforded him. He actually missed Hulk – his big hands, his ultra-bass voice, his childish pride, his occasionally startling insights. Bruce was broken in half without him.

Well, he might be broken, but he was not fucking beaten.

He had to time it carefully.

Radiation levels climbing.

Fuck, he was running out of time.

Head full of cotton wool and tea and bullshit.

He missed Hulk. Missed the team. Steve would have broken this stupid cuff in seconds, and Thor could have zapped Sterns into powder without mussing a single golden hair. Natasha would be dry and deadly, and Clint would quip as he covered them from above. Tony always had something off-colour to say whenever they were put into restraints on a mission, and he'd taken to filling in the remarks himself in the privacy of his mind. Dumb and numb and talking to himself. Spectacular.

He stole a glance at the machine again. The levels were close to optimum.

Shit.

Okay.

Now.

Bruce bent slowly and pulled his shackled leg close to his chest. His ribs screamed at him as his body bowed over in response, but he ignored it. It was sort of easy to ignore when everything felt like it was coming from underwater. Even the pain was welcome – a sharp knife through the muted pastels of the world.

Sucking in a breath, he rattled the chain once or twice, and then turned his back to Sterns as much as he dared.

"What are you doing?" came the quick question.

Good.

Bruce relaxed a little and didn't answer. He turned his head slightly to catch the man in his peripheral vision. Sterns was walking towards him.

His head looks like a – Christ, not now, Tony.

He hunched his shoulders over his knee, as though trying to hide something.

"Banner," Sterns snapped. "If you do not answer, I will be forced to... give you some incentive, yet again. You don't want another taste now, do you?"

God, a taste – lapsang souchong, please. Leave the bag in.

"Stubborn fool," Sterns said, his voice growing louder as he came closer. "Seems I'll have to see to your education once more."

Oh, anything but the briar patch, Brer Fox.

Bruce tensed, waiting for that strange sound that accompanied the bolt blasting from Stern's grotesquely swelled head.

Now!

As the hissing energy flew at his unprotected shoulders, Bruce rolled back. He gritted his teeth as his mending collarbone complained, and lifted his bound leg as high as the stupid fucking heavy-ass chain would allow. He'd timed it perfectly, and he'd spotted that Sterns always, always aimed for his centre of mass. Which would have been his trunk, if it weren't now lying on the floor...

The bolt hit the shackle dead on, and the metal contorted and melted with a deafening hiss. He bit down on a scream as it burned straight through his trousers and into his skin. He kept rolling, rolling, and thanked whoever was up there watching that he'd kept up the yoga, at least. Too bad he hadn't kept up the martial arts.

Staggering to his feet, a terrible smell rose to his nostrils and he almost doubled over. His skin was burning, molten metal sinking into his flesh. He couldn't stop the strangled shout escaping this time, and tore off the leg of his pants as fast as his shaking hands allowed. His right arm was fairly useless in its cast, but the left used the bunched material to wipe as much of the molten metal away as possible. His hands blistered, and his whole leg felt like it was on fire. He tried not to look too closely at the scalded flesh. There were pink-white ropes of tendon showing, before they became obscured by a rush of blood.

Sterns was slowly applauding. Bruce straightened, woozy with bile rising in his throat, his limbs still shaking, and met the man's eyes. He was smirking.

"Oh, very ingenious," he drawled. "I do like a good escape plan. Tell me, Doctor, what's the next step? Or haven't you got that far?"

"Oh, I got that far," he said, and closed his eyes.

"Trying to frighten me?" mocked Sterns.

Bruce didn't answer that. In fact, he was dreaming of a pot of chamomile.

"You won't change," Sterns said gleefully. "We're still in Harlem, after all. All those terribly breakable people..." he broke off, tutting. "Be such a shame if someone happened to them. Again."

"We're not in Harlem," Bruce opened his eyes. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? Did you really think I would fall for that?"


Tony

Damn, Hulk could move.

The giant was a green blur that bounced from the side of buildings, rocketed over skyscrapers, barrelled down lanes, and whizzed through the air like Tarzan on steroids. Tony and Thor were being hard-pressed to keep up, and he had almost lost the guy twice. Only JARVIS's tracking system, linked through to the suit, was keeping the Hulk on his dial. He'd read that Hulk could jump over six miles before, but hadn't really believed it.

Yeah, six miles might actually be something of an underestimate.

Hulk-herding duty was pretty ordinary, to be honest. He hadn't had to stop him from smashing anything at all, really – except a weird moment when he stopped to uproot a tree and pulverise it. He'd cleared that street out pretty quickly.

"Just taking the Hulk for a walk, folks, nothing to worry about!" he'd blasted over the suit's speakers. People had eyed him with panicked incredulity as they fled, and screams followed in their wake wherever Hulk landed.

People always screamed at Hulk. Poor guy.

Poor Bruce.

Don't think about it.

With time enough to ponder things, Tony's earlier realisation was coalescing in his gut, solidifying like lead. It was a cold feeling, but he wasn't freezing in despair anymore. Instead, as had happened once before, he could feel his whole being turning to solid steel.

Yeah. When the tough got going, Tony Stark repulsored tough's fugly face in. Fuck Sterns. Fuck this. He was going to find the stupid spaniel he luuuh... L-worded, and then give him an amateur tonsillectomy. With his tongue.

Hulk roared, and Tony blinked out of his thoughts. Whoops, okay. Paying attention to the Hulk now.

Part of Tony continued to wonder if he could suck Bruce's brains out through his dick. Hey, who said he couldn't multitask?

Hulk gathered his brawny legs and leapt once more, rising like a leviathan and soaring into the sky. He used the corner of a building to correct his trajectory, and concrete and masonry fell to the sidewalk in chunks, splattering and crumbling. Tony winced.

"Ah, I'll be making a few donations to city repairs, make a note," he muttered to JARVIS.

Understood, Sir. May I suggest a slightly higher elevation here?

"Yeah, yeah." Tony angled himself into the sky, rising until Hulk was a bounding green dot below. "Where's he headed?"

The current trajectory suggests that he intends to bypass Manhattan entirely. He has not deviated from a south-easterly trajectory...

"So, Brooklyn? Steve's gonna love that."

Ordering a new supply of punching bags now, Sir.

"Hang on. Were there any sites on Natasha and Clint's list in Brooklyn?"

There was a slight pause, and then JARVIS said, No, Sir. But a result from Doctor Banner's tracking algorithm has just been pinpointed in the area.

"Hang on, when did you get into SHIELD's R & D feeds, I didn't tell you to - wait, you're kidding, really? It worked after all? He's gonna be so damned smug, I can't wait to taste how smug he is. Wait, scratch that. I mean..."

Ah. Congratulations, Sir. May I say how pleasant it is that you have finally bought a clue?

"Sassy," Tony murmured.

Well, Sir, it is embarrassing to acknowledge oneself as a creation of a man who can program an AI and build a flying battle suit but cannot figure out that he is a fool for a clever and handsome Doctor.

"Okay, enough sass, when the hell did I program you to be a feisty Jewish grandmother stereotype? Tracking program, now. Where's the source of gamma radiation?"

Brooklyn, Waterfront District. The address is now on your HUD.

"Put me on to the quinjet."

Tony didn't even wait for Clint to speak, but dived into the information immediately. "Okay, JARVIS is still hooked up to SHIELD, I know, I'm so proud, they grow up so fast. Bruce's tracking algorhithm got a ping. It looks like that's where Hulk's headed. It's, and damn I am so sorry, Steve..."

A sigh, and Steve's voice sounded so mournful. "Shoot."

"And that's as close to swearing as you'll get from him," Clint said. "Man, it is not Brooklyn's month."

"Really?" Steve said, sounding young and plaintive. Tony could just imagine his expression, and was that sympathy welling up from his battery? Man, he was getting soft with this whole team thing. He cleared his throat.

"Yeah. Waterfront district."

"You may be onto something with the whole loony-factory theory, Clint," Natasha murmured, even as Steve said, "hey!" indignantly.

"JARVIS'll send you the co-ords, see you there. Whoops, Hulk just uprooted a sign, gonna go bail Thor out. Laters." Tony ended the call, and swooped down.

"Big guy!" he yelled, and retracted the face-plate so that Hulk could see him.

Blind with anger and pain, Hulk roared and jerked his head to stare through him. His eyes were practically luminescent now, and every step he took made the ground beneath his feet quake.

"That's it," Tony said encouragingly. "This way, leave the nice council signage alone, let's get out of Central Park so the lycra brigade can continue their one-upmanship in peace, yeah? Come on. That's it..."

Hulk bared his teeth in an almost-soundless snarl that was blood-curling to see, and Tony repressed a swallow that would have really irritated his throat. Nope, not thinking about his poor abused throat, there were better ways to end up sounding hoarse, fuck you very much, that wasn't the way he liked to end up sounding like Bonnie Tyler – and he didn't want to be reminded of that awful moment dangling helplessly as Hulk succumbed to the horrors in his head, please and thank you.

"Let's keep moving," he said as kindly as he could manage. "Come on, buddy. Let's go find Bruce."

Thor landed beside him with a dull thump, and swept his hair out of his eyes. "I feared I had lost you," he said, and then winced a little, his hand pressing at his side.

"Shit, did he get you?"

"It is of no moment," Thor said, but his face was tight with pain. "What news?"

Hulk snarled at the newcomer, gathered himself, and leaped into the sky.

"Ah, damn," Tony sighed.


Hulk

SMASH

bruce find bruce find

...

not bruce

SMASH

...

not bruce

THAT WAY

...

GO AWAY

smash SMASH KILL YOU

...

bruce find bruce

bruce

bruce


Bruce

Jesus, his ankle. Oh god, how it hurt.

Well, he was growing less and less numb by the second, so that was a point in its favour.

Sterns was looking at him as though he was a pet that had learned a new trick. His thin black eyebrows had risen, and he folded his arms. "You worked that out."

Bruce resisted the urge to roll his eyes – they were stinging and watering enough already. His neck and jaw were clenching tight against the pain. "You were rubbing it in just a little too much. Anyone ever tell you that you are a huge ham?"

Sterns rocked back a little on his heels, and then he scowled. "It is of no importance. You still cannot get away. I can hold you here with sheer mental superiority."

"Yes, yes, the uh..." Bruce waved his hand absently, "glowing head powers thing. Very impressive."

Keep him talking.

"You mock me for the last time," Sterns growled, and his forehead lit up. Bruce tensed.

Quickly, quickly, quickly. Running out of time.

The minute the bolt of psionic energy flew from Sterns' brow, Bruce lurched to the left. He practically collapsed onto the discarded teleport device, and palming it in his burned hands, cranked the dial.

"That won't take you anywhere," Sterns said smugly, and he sauntered forwards as he looked down at his prone prisoner. "It has to be calibrated, and..."

"I know," Bruce said distantly, working it with shaking fingers. "You forgot to add a shielding field to the portal, by the way. Have you got a vendetta against shields? There wasn't one on the bomb until fifteen minutes ago, and additionally your head looks like a cantaloupe. Shields are good, look into them. You should have considered adding a zed-neutrino equation to the dark matter envelope, it acts as a..."

"... a protective shield, yes, yes, the point has been somewhat graphically made," Sterns sneered. "If it hasn't escaped your notice, I am working in a warehouse, not Tony Stark's laboratory. My resources have been somewhat... limited to what I am able to steal. Why are you persisting in fiddling with that? You cannot work the teleport mechanism."

Distract him. Distractions.

Shit. Only one thing left.

"My blood," he said abruptly.

Sterns looked a little taken aback at the non-sequitur, but he recovered in seconds. "What about it?"

"You took it."

"Glad to see you are keeping up, Doctor," Sterns said, contempt curling his lip. Bruce smiled.

"I'm not the Hulk."

A blink, and then Sterns laughed. "Ah, you cannot fool the Leader. A pathetic attempt!"

"Am I healing?"

"What?"

Bruce did roll his eyes this time. "Am. I. Healing? Look at my leg."

Sterns' brow furrowed, and then he sucked in a breath. "You...!"

Bruce ducked his head and fiddled with the teleport some more. "Sorry to disappoint," he said calmly. "Bit of a trial separation, you know. We needed to see other people."

"What... but how is this possible?" Sterns' face mottled in patches of dark green as fury built behind his eyes. Bruce shrugged as he connected a wire on the tracer/teleport beacon with hands shaking, numb and sticky as blisters rose and broke on his palms.

"You're so clever, figure it out," he said, concentrating. "Although I have my doubts about your so-called vast intelligence. You didn't even inspect my blood, and I've been sitting here with my arm in a cast for almost a day."

Sterns made a wordless sound of outrage and disbelief.

Prior coordinates, but strip the portal of any shock absorption. Send him reeling. Gamma signature between 6 and 8 picometers. When the thing began to beep, Bruce smiled at it through lips made rubbery with pain. "So you're intelligent perhaps, but not very observant."

Sterns rallied magnificently. The grandiose ones always did. "So the bomb will not force the mutation to fall along expected lines," he said with a dismissive wave. "You forget, Mister Green, I have that same blood running in my veins."

"Not enough, though. That's why you needed me," Bruce said, and carefully wiped the portal thing free of his blood as the beeps began to speed up.

"Enough of it! Enough for this!" Sterns said, his eyes bulging. "I will replace your blood with my own. The diluted gamma radiation level may cause some subjects to perish rather than sustain their glorious new form..."

"If you say anything about omelettes and eggs, I am going to be sick," Bruce muttered.

"Trite, perhaps," Sterns said, and the fires of fanaticism burned in his expression. "But true! It is a necessary evil, that some must suffer for the good of all. I can calculate the exact amount required, yes! It will be even grander than my original plan! A race of beings with incomparable intelligence, superlative minds, superhuman abilities..."

There was a low glissando, and Bruce glanced up. The levels on the bomb had reached criticality, and it was ready for detonation. Too long, and it would overheat and erupt anyway, because Sterns was a genius who didn't put in a fucking cooling system.

He was out of time.

Sterns turned around, his eyes widening. His mouth parted in a triumphant grin for a brief second, and Bruce leapt onto the momentary distraction.

"Want to bet?" he asked, and slapped down on the button.

Nothing happened for a long moment.

Sterns began to laugh derisively. "How many times must I tell you? I have prepared for-"

Bruce pulled himself to his feet once more. There was a gathering puddle of blood beneath him, and he was beginning to feel rather light-headed.

"—every eventuality. You are nothing but an ape compared to me! I have already calculated-"

Bruce flicked the dial on the teleport beacon, and breathed in as the bomb began to rattle underneath the dome. His leg was screaming at him, his ribs and hands a tinkling counterpoint to that symphony of pain.

"—thousands of possibilities, planned for every contingency! You are-"

"Goddamn it, I just want to go home and possibly drown in a vat of Ceylon, could you shut the hell up for two seconds?" Bruce snapped, and threw the teleport at Sterns.

Even taking into account his new gifts, some things were instinctual. The man's hand rose automatically to catch it.

And he blinked out of existence.

It was slightly petty, but as Bruce was out of his mind with the pain and the dissociation, he allowed himself the last word. "Shield," he grunted. "Should have added a shield."


Tony

Hulk was as unerring as a bullet, ripping through walls and buildings in a single straight line headed straight for the source of radiation. Tony swerved and pulled two people out of the way as Hulk barrelled into a building (thankfully it looked like it was targeted for demolition anyway, maybe Hulk could start a small business?) while Thor pulled Hulk's focus enough for him to gather himself once more and jump over all the fragile stuff. Y'know, people, houses, the city of New York...

Sir, incoming call from SHIELD.

"What? Now? Tell Fury..."

"Stark," came Hill's voice, sharp and hard with tension.

"You have reached the life-model decoy of Tony Stark, who is sort of busy right now, please don't leave a message," he snapped, and flew on after the retreating form of Hulk in the night sky.

"Shut up and listen, this is important. Sterns just appeared on the Helicarrier!"

Tony had to stop himself from choking again. "Wait what, you what now?"

"The teleport device, the one that trapped Banner – we think the Doctor must have planted it on him. He's delirious from the jump. We have him in custody in the psi-dampening holding area."

"Hang on, you have a psi-dampening... I don't want to know, do I, this has McCoy's paws all over it, I have allergies."

"That's not all."

"It's a pretty big something. Can you get anything out of him?"

"He's delirious, as I said. He's practically insensate. The response medics think there may be some brain damage."

"See? I keep saying, it's not the size of the head but how you use it. So? What's the rest?"

She paused, and Tony used the moment to flip over and hurtle after Hulk, who landed with a crash in the centre of a busy street. He banked and held out his arms to stop the oncoming traffic even as JARVIS (bless his sneaky circuits, fuck, he loved his AI) flipped whatever in the city's traffic grid to send every light flashing red. Cars skidded to a halt.

"The Council has called in Ross."

"What?"

"You didn't think that the Hulk rampaging across New York would go unnoticed, did you?" she said, but there was a note of desperation in her voice as well. "It wasn't our call. Fury trusts you to handle this."

"We are handling this! Get Ross off our tail!"

"He's coming in now. We have no jurisdiction over his forces."

"Military fucking chain of command," he practically snarled. Then, "Wait. I'll call you."

"Stark..."

He hung up, even as the quinjet came soaring over them, its wings tilting. "Guys!" he hailed them.

"What now?" Steve said, crackling over the comms.

"There is something amiss?" Thor said, and Tony held up a hand even as Hulk tore up an inoffensive strip of tarmac and smashed it into powder.

"General Thunderthighs Ross has been called," he said curtly. "I'm proposing that we rename it World Overreaction Council, who's with me?"

"Bozhe Moi," Natasha said under her breath.

"You want us to run interference?" asked Clint, his tone cool and professional. Tony took a deep breath.

"Steve," he said, trying to keep the panic and the pleading note out of his voice.

"I..." Steve sounded a little overwhelmed for a moment, and then Captain America was speaking. "I've got it. Go save Bruce."

"All the punching bags for you, Steve. Four for you, Steve. You go, Steve," Tony said, boneless and reeling in relief. That lasted for approximately point two of a second, and then Hulk leaped into the air once more. "Gotta go, don't wait up!"

Sir, Lieutenant Hill is...

"Holy... what is this, am I a switchboard now?" he exploded, lifting into the sky. "Come on, Thor!"

"Stark, the radiation in the Brooklyn area..." Hill crackled over his comm, and Tony wanted to scream.

"Busy!" he barked.

"It's entering..."

"Busy!"


Steve

Steve hadn't actually met General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross before.

He wasn't enjoying the experience.

"Stand down," he said, drawing on as much authority in his stance and tone as possible. "The Avengers have this under control, Sir. All you'll accomplish is to force the Hulk to take a defensive stance, and that will get civilians and your command killed."

"That thing is what gets people killed!" He was a bristly, older man with grey hair and a moustache that in other circumstances might have made Steve a little nostalgic. No-one wore moustaches anymore. It was like hats: they'd gone out of fashion. Dum-Dum would have stood out like a sore thumb.

"With all due respect," Steve said, and made it quite clear that there wasn't in fact a lot of respect involved at all, "that's not true. The Hulk is a thinking creature, and he saves lives. We are currently in the middle of a rescue and retrieval mission, and we are following the Hulk's lead. You would be advised to keep out of our way."

"Saves...? Son, that thing has killed over a hundred people. It's a monster, and it belongs in a cage. We need to find out how to neutralise it and make..."

"More of them?" Natasha interjected, her eyebrow raising sceptically. "Save us the altruistic speech, General. I was at Culver and Harlem. I know what you did. I know what you want."

Ross only paused for a second, before rallying. "And mine is the only arm of the forces dedicated to eradicating that mistake. You've unleashed that freak on New York, for god's sake!"

"He hasn't hurt a soul," said Steve. "Only buildings."

"And trees," added Natasha under her breath.

"If you intend to interfere," Clint said, and grinned as he flicked the fletching on one arrow, "I'll be forced to persuade you not to."

"You?" Ross snorted. "You're one man, and you use a goddamned bow and arrow. Don't make me laugh."

"Do I look like I'm being funny?" Clint demanded, his face like stone.

Ross scoffed. "It's a bow and arrow! What the hell you think you can do to a tank, boy?"

"Yep, that's right. A Stark Industries bow and arrow," Clint corrected, and his grin turned a trifle evil. "And I never, ever miss."

Ross scowled. "You should be shooting at that thing. It's a danger to..."

"You want the Hulk?" Steve stepped forward, his arms bunching and his eyes flashing. "You'll have to get through me. You'll have to take down Captain America. I look forward to how you explain that to your superiors."

"And the media," Natasha added.

"And the world," Clint said.

"Not only that, but if by some fluke you get past me," Steve said, his voice remaining totally steady, almost conversational, "you'll also have to get through Hawkeye and the Black Widow."

Natasha tilted her head, regarding Ross as though he was some sort of new and interesting bug. "And that's only the first line of attack," she said. "I don't think you'd enjoy meeting the second."

"See exhibit A: God of Thunder," Clint said.

"If you aren't toast by that point," Steve said, "Iron Man will finish the job. See, nothing is going to stop him from carrying out this mission. Not you, not Sterns, not SHIELD, not the World Security Council. You do remember what happens when Tony Stark makes up his mind, don't you?"

"Maybe you could present him with his next medal?" Natasha suggested coolly.

"Last but not least," Clint said, sighting down his arrow and allowing some of his anger to surface, "if in the incredibly unlikely scenario that you actually put down all of the Avengers, time turns backwards, clocks stop, the seas boil, hell freezes over, etcetera - there's still the big green lummox in question. Don't think you'll have many men left after that, General."

"Not only Hulk," said Steve. "But Bruce Banner. You know him, don't you? Brown hair, brown eyes, angry fella, fourth smartest man in the world, made you look like a fool..."

Ross glared at them wordlessly.

"Wise decision," Natasha murmured.

Steve glared back, and some of the troops behind Ross automatically took a step away from the utterly furious Captain America. That could go to a guy's head if he wasn't careful. "I won't warn you again," he said darkly. "Stay out of our way."


Bruce

Stumbling over to the dome, Bruce felt around the edges with nerveless fingers. The blisters and blood made it hard to grip onto the smooth transparent material, and he cursed under his breath, trying to pull the latch for the door. He had to get in there and stop that bomb before it covered the Northern Hemisphere in gamma radiation.

He wasn't a gamma battery any more. He was going to die of radiation poisoning, but he could fucking well save the world one last time before he did.

He could see the levels flickering in the red through the shielding, and he gritted his teeth as his determination began to rise, filling his belly with fire.

Would have been nice to see the Team. Would have been nice to see Hulk.

Before he...

Tony.

Nope. Work. Concentrate.

Bruce steeled his shaking hands and lurched over to one of the external consoles. Maybe there was a sort of release catch. He was able to decipher some of the banks of computers, and as he worked feverishly at bringing the level down he was able to figure out some more.

No coolant system! A nuclear system without a coolant – not even graphite rods! What kind of moron designs a nuclear system without a kill switch!

Giant intellect, my dying ass.

The consoles did nothing. He couldn't bring the levels down, and the fucking thing was going to blow. He collapsed back to the dome and tried the door yet again – in vain.

"Fuck!" he shouted, and then smashed both fists against the unyielding stuff. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

The stabbing, blinding throb of his injuries was growing stronger, and he bit down on his lip in agony as he scrabbled at the stupid dome. Desperation was beginning to mount in the hollow of his ribs, and he could barely see for the anger.

Wait.

He could. Feel.

Feel.

But that meant...

Bruce paused, his hand leaving a bloody handprint on the dome as he turned around, half-hoping, half-dreading.

And the wall caved in.

Roaring like a hurricane, Hulk stood there, his mighty arms raised and his whole body aglow with rage. Bruce gasped and almost crumpled in relief. "Hulk!" he practically sobbed, and took a clumsy, dragging step towards the other half of his soul. "Hulk, Hulk..."

Hulk snarled wordlessly, and Bruce couldn't even see a glimmer of the sad little boy in his eyes. It was all vengeance, all the beast. Bruce didn't care; he simply didn't give a fuck. It was all Hulk, and so it was all Bruce. The beast was part of him, too.

Hulk barrelled towards him, huge shoulders lowered. In a heartbeat Bruce was in his arms, and he screamed as his injuries were crushed against Hulk, his blood smearing across Hulk's broad green chest. Hulk roared his triumph, and their voices rang through the rafters together in a strange and painful harmony.

"Hulk..." Bruce panted, and tears were clouding his eyes and he was fucking dying, here.

Hulk's eyes met his, and he bared his teeth. A continual rumble shook his massive frame as he growled over his prize.

His heart sinking, Bruce put his hand on that giant green face, ignoring the acid-tingle of the burns on his palms as he searched the eyes for that sad, hurt, angry little boy. "Can't you speak?" he urged.

Had he howled his mind away?

"Hulk," Bruce said, his heart clenching, and he shook that face gently. "Please."

Hulk's snarl deepened.

"Speak to me," Bruce pleaded, and his hand trailed over the brutish brow and buried itself in the green, black and silver curls. Hulk's eyelids drooped to half mast. "Please,"

Then they opened. "H-Hulk... missed Bruce."

Bruce choked back a laugh. "I missed you too."

"Hurt," Hulk said, a touch of that madness yet lingering in his face. Bruce leaned forward until his forehead pressed against Hulk's.

"Yes, it hurt," he whispered. "But it's better now."

"No," Hulk said, and the huge hand that wasn't supporting Bruce lifted to hover over the ruins of his leg. Then it balled into a fist and crashed into the concrete floor. Dust drifted down from the exposed ceiling. "Hurt. Hurt!"

Bruce buried his hand in Hulk's. The rightness of it was absolute – a key fitting into a lock. He tried to swallow around the rock in his throat, but he couldn't lie to Hulk. He'd never been able to lie to Hulk. He felt his face crumple. "Hulk. That's not... Oh god. I'm so sorry – I'm so, so sorry. I-I'm dying, Hulk."

"You're what?" came another voice, shocked and grief-stricken.

Bruce closed his eyes. "Tony, I..."

"No," Hulk growled, the madness igniting once more in his eyes, his chest rising as he inflated with anger. "Fix. Fix! Metal Man, Tony, fix Bruce!"

"He can't," Bruce said with a broken little hitch in his voice, and Jesus he sounded weak. Useless.

"FIX!" Hulk howled, and threw his head back to roar at the ceiling. The air trembled, and Bruce buried his face in that expanse of warm, familiar green skin and tried not to shake with sorrow.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Hulk howled, and howled, and howled. He clutched at Bruce as though the universe would rip him from his arms. Then he pulled Bruce's face away so that he could glare down at him, his jaw jutting forward and his eyes anguished beyond description. "Not fair! NOT FAIR!"

"No, nothing much is ever fair for us, is it?" Bruce asked, his voice uneven, and his lip quirked sadly.

Hulk then curled himself around Bruce. "No, Hulk will save Bruce," he said stubbornly, and there he was. There was that little boy, the angry little boy who wanted to save his mother.

"Not this time," Bruce said against that broad chest, spattered with his blood. "You know it doesn't work that way for us."

Hulk trembled. "Why?" he asked in a small voice.

Bruce smiled, and oh, the anger was warm as well. It burned in the pit of his belly and he had missed it so much. "Just lucky, I guess."

"Look, if it's just the injuries..." Tony said from the ruins of the wall. He stopped, and his mask peeled back to reveal a face utterly white and bloodless with fear. His voice was croaky and hoarse. "I can get you the best doctors money can buy; shit, I can get you all the fucking doctors, you name it..."

"Radiation poisoning," Bruce said, and his lips quirked wryly as he turned in Hulk's arms. Their hands fell to performing that old nervous tic, and Bruce could have cried at the feeling of great fingers twining and intertwining with his own. "Twenty four hours next to that thing, unshielded. Sterns isn't a fan of shields."

"Any shields, it seems," Tony said, sounding shocky and faint. "Hill's got him in SHIELD's psi-null chamber."

"That sounds intriguing. McCoy's work, or Pym?" Bruce said. He couldn't take his eyes away from Tony's. It was almost – it was pretend, it was fake, but he could almost make-believe that it was the two of them, talking science as always, Hulk wrapped around his mind and keeping it warm with his rage. He wanted that to happen, more than anything. He wanted it so much it stole his breath away.

"Radiation poisoning," Tony said, zeroing in on the point. "You're dying of radiation poisoning."

"I am. Close your face-plate," Bruce said quietly, and Tony's face contorted for a brief, ugly moment.

"First things first," he said, and strode over.

And as his lips pressed insistently against Bruce's, he thought oh.

Oh.

Right.

Of course.

Tony kissed the way he lived – with total confidence and a barely-concealed desperation. The scratch of beard was... weird. But okay, Bruce could get used to it –well, if he weren't fucking dying, that is. Then Bruce realised that he wasn't kissing back, and he corrected that hurriedly.

"I didn't..." he mumbled, and Tony caught his lip with his own and opened his mouth. His lips were thinner than Bruce's own, and pushy; needy, just like Tony. Presumptuous, just like Tony. Somehow selfish and generous at the same time. And sweet.

"Yeah, so, I had some time to myself to think recently..." Tony said, and took advantage of Bruce's smile to press his tongue into his mouth and stroke the ridges of his hard palate. Bruce hmmed in appreciation, and licked at Tony's teeth, and the billionaire groaned a little.

"Okay, you're good at this, how did I not know you were good at this? I bet you fuck like an earthquake," Tony said, and Bruce's breath caught.

"We're a cliché," Bruce said, and laughed softly. "Save the damsel, get a kiss."

"You'd saved your own damned self before I got here, fucking shut up," Tony said, and oh, soft, warm. Syrupy.

"Your timing sucks. Wait til I'm dying to kiss me," he murmured against Tony's lips, and Tony growled wetly.

"I said shut up," he said, and dived back in.

Bruce allowed his eyes to slide shut as Hulk rumbled in confusion. Did he? Did they?

Maybe. He was a man. He was a friend. He was Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist. But... maybe.

It wasn't something he was willing to sacrifice, whatever it was.

"Close your face-plate," he repeated in a whisper, and Tony gasped against his mouth for a moment.

"I don't care about some fucking radiation," he bit out. "You're not going to fucking die, Bruce. You're not. You're not. I'll give you anything, just don't... don't..."

"I'm sorry," Bruce said again, and god, he didn't know which one of them he was even speaking to.

"You can't die!" Tony practically growled at him, before kissing him again, his hands gripping Bruce's shoulders hard enough to bruise.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, and he sounded so lost.

"But I..." Tony broke off and stared at him, his eyes very dark and round. "I..."

"I'm sorry," was all Bruce could say, a broken mantra.

"Stop saying that!" Tony snarled, and Hulk moaned in misery.

"I don't want to," Bruce said, and how ironic was that. The man who'd put a bullet in his own head... and now he would do anything, anything to stay.

Hulk keened for a moment, and then he thumped his great hand against the warehouse floor. "No, no, Bruce not go again!" he said and began to rock back and forth with Bruce a little. "Hulk needs Bruce. Hulk missed Bruce. Not fair. Not fair. Not fair."

He moaned like a whale, and then it devolved into a little tune hummed around great, sucking, shuddering breaths. Hulk was trying to sing him Mummy's song, the one that made the bad things go away.

"Hulk," Bruce said and he knew his face was wet, knew it was covered in tears and blood. "You need to get Tony out of here, this bomb is going to..."

"You bastard," Tony cursed him, and his gauntleted hands sank into his hair and pulled. Tony's face was twisted with sorrow and rage. "You bastard, you can't ask him to do that, you can't ask me to..."

"I'm already dying, but I can stop this thing," Bruce said, and lifted his chin. The gauntlets tugged at his curls, but what was that compared to his leg, eaten away by molten chains? "I have to try."

"Bruce, you can live through this, you've done it before!" Tony shook his head slightly, and then smoothed his hand over the hair. "You can. I told you when we met, didn't I, you remember, and I'm always fucking right, it's my job to be right, that he saved you, you can live through this, you can..."

"Tony," Bruce said, and looked up at the Hulk. "It's not that... he's here."

"So let him save you!" Tony demanded.

"How? He's there, I'm here! I'm not a gamma battery anymore!" Bruce retorted angrily.

Then his eyes opened very wide.

"But Hulk is," Tony said, following his train of thought.

"We need Thor," Bruce said, a huge nebulous hope swelling in his chest. "Get him. I'll..."

"Right," Tony said, and the face-plate snapped shut. His repulsors ignited and he headed for the door – before doubling back, his face uncovering and stealing a hard kiss.

"I want to make you bark like a sea-lion," he murmured. "I kinda think you deserve to know that."

Blinking, Bruce gaped as Tony grinned, and then Iron Man was gone.

"Tony," Hulk said, and snuffled into Bruce's hair.

"Don't you start," Bruce said, and his emotions were churning so fast he felt like he was going to be sick. How long had he denied his own feelings?

Jesus fucking Christ.

He needed him. He needed Tony to push him, to prod him, to make him a better man. He needed Tony to listen and to laugh. He needed Tony to bring him back whenever he ran away. He needed Tony to force him to listen to the hard truths, and to calm his greener side. He needed Tony to not be afraid of him, to remind him that he was human. He needed to fight and snark and science and bicker with Tony forever.

Some genius, Banner – you can outwit a supervillain, but still manage remain ignorant of your apparently very intense attraction to your very male, very charming, very out-of-your-league friend.

But Tony had kissed him and – oh god, the pain was obviously turning him into some simpering idiot. Focus.

"Tony?" Hulk said plaintively, and Bruce groaned a little. Evidently neither of them was easily dissuaded.

Oh, of course. Hulk loved Tony. Loved him. And Bruce was a fool, and possibly deaf, dumb and blind, and what was Tony thinking, wanting Bruce? Why would he kiss poison like him?

Hulk growled, his eyebrows raised as he glared down at him, and Bruce checked his thoughts. Okay, not helpful.

"Bruce is good," Hulk said flatly. "Hulk knows."

"You can feel my thoughts again," Bruce said, and he knew his smile must be very twisted. "Then you know..."

"Not much time," Hulk finished. "Bruce-thoughts, all sparkle and zip and zing." He sighed out, an aching sound. "Better. Better."

"Hulk," Bruce said, and rubbed at his face, no doubt smearing blood and tears and god knows what across it. "We need to get under that dome. You see the dome?"

Hulk turned slowly, Bruce still clutched in his arms like a teddy bear. "Hulk sees."

"We need to be under it. It's the only way to save me, but..." he took a deep breath, "it'll put us back together."

Hulk's brow furrowed. "Like before."

"No," Bruce said, and laid his hand on Hulk's. He'd never be able to do that again, if it worked. "No. Not like before. This time, we share. You have your rules, and I have mine."

"No traps? Hulk can be free?"

"We both can," Bruce said, and squeezed that huge hand. "We'll talk, somehow. We'll work this out. Together, yeah?"

"But..." Hulk's shoulders slumped and his face drew down into forlorn, unhappy lines. Then he raised his hand and touched Bruce's hair, his face. "Hulk needs..."

"I know," Bruce said, and grasped one of those huge fingers. "I know."

Hulk bowed his head and growled for a moment, mulling it over. Then he looked up. There were traces of tears on his huge face as well.

"Hulk will miss Bruce," he said quietly.

Bruce threw his arms around his neck and held on for a long, long time.

"One God of Thunder, as ordered. JARVIS tells me that thing has two minutes before it reaches fusion," Tony's mechanical voice interrupted them, and Bruce swallowed.

"Ready?"

Hulk shook his head, but he was able to pull the hatch off the dome anyway. He hunkered down in order to fit through, and then smashed the broken hatch against the doorway once inside. The evil-looking bomb bleeped and whirred, and Bruce could vaguely make out the levels through his useless eyes.

Hulk looked around the dome for a moment, nudging one of the desks of computers absently and knocking it over. Then he placed Bruce on his knee, his huge hands hovering over the raw meat of his leg.

"Gone, after?" he said, and raised his eyes to Bruce's.

"Just like always," Bruce confirmed sadly, and smoothed the wiry hair.

"Bruce first? Or Hulk?"

Bruce smiled. "Does it matter? It's not like we're different people."

Hulk smiled back tentatively. It wasn't his normal savage grin, but a small smile with covered teeth. It made him look more like a child than ever. "Hulk lets Bruce watch from now on," he said.

Bruce's mouth dropped open for a second, and then he nodded. "You too. Unless..." He trailed off and squirmed a little, thinking of what Tony had said. Hulk definitely picked up on how he felt, because he rolled his eyes and laughed, a booming, rattling sound in the cramped space.

"Hulk knows. Hulk will sleep," he said. The beeping of the bomb began to rise in pitch, and damn it, this was it. This was it, and it would either kill them or put them back together, and either way they were never to touch like this ever again.

Bruce met Tony's eyes. The engineer was speaking rapidly to Thor, who had his hammer held out in preparation.

Lightning. A natural source of electricity – and gamma rays.

Tony swallowed hard, and nodded once. Bruce took a deep breath before turning to Hulk again.

"Make sure to follow your Rules," Bruce said, as urgently as he dared, and smoothed his bloody hands over Hulk's face again before giving that grubby green forehead a hard, frantic kiss. "Clean your teeth, and don't argue with Steve and Tony if they say you need a shower," he breathed against that gamma-warm skin. "Don't ever do anything Clint says, ever. If you get angry, go and see Thor – he likes to fight. Be nice to Natasha, she likes you now. Uh, watch where you're going, doors are not optional, and I know it's hard but try to keep damage to a minimum... and..."

In the distance, he heard Tony's voice saying, "Now!" and the crackle of Mjolnir as she called to the skies.

"Hulk knows," he repeated, and great green arms enfolded him, holding him close. "Love Bruce."

Bruce choked.

"Bye-bye," Hulk added softly.

"Love you too, little boy," Bruce whispered, and the world went white.


Arrrgh climax. I hope you liked it.

*nerves liek whoa*