Hey guys once again.
Off from school at last. Though I'm having trouble finding out what's better-school or my house. My house is an absolute mad house. At times I actually like going to school rather that staying at home. And that is definitely saying something.
Well anyways, let's go on with the story. I think this is my longest chapter by far.
We last left off when the avenger's gang arrived at the forest.
Bruce's POV
"Oh my god." whispered someone from in the thicket of the forest. I anticipated the moment that I would see the inside of it.
I pushed through the thick trees and stepped into a different world entirely.
"Whoa…" I whispered as I looked around, taking in the beautiful scenery. All around us were tree, flowers and animals. Little insects that I have never seen before were flying around us.
I felt someone nudge my back and I quickly turned around to see Tony stepping through the trees in the little clearing we were standing in. I could actually see relief in his eyes when he looked around. I doubted anyone else noticed, after all, only I knew the full story of what happened to Tony in Afghanistan. Of course he wouldn't tell anyone else. In fact, the only reason I found out was because he had been severely drunk when the day he told me.
….
It was a late night. Tony and I were working in the lab on another project-a better version of the shield helicarrier specifically for Avengers use. It had the same concept as the original. Big, enough space for briefings, and a lot of room. Though we were adding some, shall we say, upgrades to it.
For example, we were adding rooms for all of the avengers tailored to their specific needs, a gym that took up most of the bottom floor, and many more labs than the helicarrier had. I personally thought it was a bit unnecessary, but of course, Tony had the complete opposite views. Everything for him was go big or go home.
"Hey Tony, you done with the blueprints?" I asked form one side of the lab.
"Mmmm…almost." He replied.
"okay."
I was looking over some algorithms for the holographic shield that we were planning to add to the flying ship.
Just as I was going over a second formula, I heard a click and then a hiss. That was the sound of the high tech door to the lab opening.
I swivelled around on my chair to find Steve standing close to the door, looking a bit apprehensive. It looked like he really didn't want to be here.
Tony turned around a fraction of a second and then turned back to his work, not even acknowledging his presence.
"Ahem." Steve cleared his throat to catch his attention.
"Hello Steve." I said politely.
He nodded at me and said, "Hello Dr. Banner." He paused after that, as if he were thinking his words through before saying them. Finally, he said, "The two of you have been in the lab for too long. I've been asked to bring you two up. Dinner's on the table."
"You can't tell us what to do." Tony's voice came from the depths of the lab.
I bit the inside of my mouth. I had a feeling that this was not going to turn out well.
"I think I'm talking for the entire team when I say that you've been down here for too long."
"Oh, and you're going to try and drag us out? Good luck with that."
"Look stark, I don't have a bone to pick with you, so why don't you just come with me?"
"Because you're not the boss of me."
Agh, this was not going to be let up lightly, was it? Tony or Steve both wouldn't give up in a situation like this. They had too much pride. This was about to get bad really quickly.
Steve turned to me. "Would you like to remove yourself from the situation, Dr. Banner?"
I scrunched my eyebrows. Frankly, I was a bit surprised when he said that. I wasn't that out of control. I was a bit annoyed at him as well. I could handle myself perfectly fine in situations like this. I wanted to say all of this, but I let it go and stayed quiet.
Tony didn't though.
"Hey! Bruce has more control than that. You should learn to trust him."
"I do! It just might not be good for him to be here at this time."
I really didn't want this to become about me. Did they really have to lash out at each other every time they talked?
"He's perfectly fine being here. Right Bruce?"
"I-I-"
"You know what? I am sick of you and your stupid comebacks! Why can't you just be normal like the rest of us, Howard!"
Then there was silence. That was the gunshot. The last straw. The salt to the open wound. Steve had called Tony Howard. I knew enough about Tony to know that he hated his father. Apparently his father never paid any attention to him. Steve calling him Howard must have really hurt.
I looked over at Tony and saw his face darken until it almost looked maniacal. It was actually scary.
He stood up from his chair so fast that it toppled behind him. Then he left, forcefully shoving Steve out of the way.
I looked over at Steve and saw that he looked really guilty. He didn't say anything and just left the lab without a word.
I had to go talk to Tony.
If I knew Tony, he was probably raiding his bar, drinking yet again. That was Tony's solution when he was emotionally hurt. Drink until he couldn't drink anymore.
So that's where I decided to look.
Half an hour later, when I was sure that Steve was long gone, I left the lab and went to the floor of the tower that held Tony's personal bar.
Sure enough, that was where I found him. He was sitting on a bar stool, cradling a glass of scotch, slumped over the counter.
I sighed and shook my head as I went to sit on a stool beside him. While I was at it, I went and poured myself a glass of beer.
Tony barely acknowledged my presence. He only slightly lifted his head and nodded once. We sat in silence for a few minutes. I only took a sip of my beer before pushing it away from me.
Finally, Tony looked up at me. "You know, my father never was a great person." His words were incredibly slurred. I noticed a bottle of scotch lying empty beside him.
"I remember when I was little; he used to hit me if I got in his way. I would try to show him something I made and he would just blow up on me. Everything I did was to make him proud. And it never worked."
What he said brought back my own memories. How my dad used to hit me if I so much as in front of him when he was in one of his rage episodes. How he used to hit my mother…I shuddered involuntarily.
Tony was quiet for a few minutes. When he spoke again, his words were only a bit less slurred. "Then, in Afghanistan, I almost died presenting one of my new weapons. I was still trying to make father proud. That was why I built that weapon. And I almost died because of that." Tony took another sip of his scotch. The ice clinked around in his glass.
"Then I was in that cave, with this in my chest," Tony tapped the arc reactor clumsily. It made a strange clinking sound, just like the ice in the glass.
"Yinsen made it to save my life. He saved my life and then he died. Just for me! 'Don't waste your life' he had said." Tony took a shuddering breath before he spoke again. "I managed to escape by making my first Iron Man suit. Then it broke and I was stuck in that horrible desert. It was hours before I was found. All to please my dead father!"
I looked at him with sorrowful eyes. I didn't even know that this had happened to him. Pepper had told me about Afghanistan, but even she didn't know the full story.
I sighed once again. It seemed that I had been doing that a lot lately. "Look Tony, you didn't waste your life! You're here. You're a part of the avengers because you chose to be here. You chose to be iron man!"
He grunted. There was a glazed look in his eyes. I didn't know if he could understand me, but I spoke anyways.
"Me on the other hand, I didn't have a choice…Oh Tony, what do I do with you? You're so broken and you won't let any of us help."
When it was clear that Tony had drunk himself to oblivion, I tried to get him to move. I pulled him off the stool and let him lean on me as I led him to his room.
"But I'm not finished my drink!" He exclaimed.
"Yes you are" I said firmly as we approached his room. I pulled him and set him down heavily on the soft bed. As soon as he was set on the bed, he passed out. I could see his chest rising and falling from his breathing.
I sighed and whispered to no one in particular, "Tony you don't know how lucky you are. At least you had a choice."
I walked to the door and before I left, I added as an after thought, "And a second chance."
I shut the door as quietly as I could and went back to the lab to try and escape from my own thoughts.
…..
"Everyone here?" Fury's voice snapped me out of my untimely flashback. Scattered agreements came from the group. I shook my head to bring myself back to the present. Tony gave me a confused look, but I ignored it.
A few moments later, Natasha spoke up, "We should try and find water."
Clint agreed. "Yeah."
Fury took out his knives and started slashing at the trees, attempting to make a path. In all honesty, it didn't do much.
"A little help here, stark?" Fury glared angrily at Tony.
"Huh? Oh yeah, of course I'll help you Fury!" Tony said in a mock sweet voice.
Tony placed his suitcase on the ground with a clunk.
"JARVIS, activate."
Two small fist sized holes appeared on the top of the suitcase. Tony formed his hands into fists and stuck them in the holes. The armour started to form around his arms and Tony brought his hands, along with the armour up to his chest. The chest plate slammed on and the rest of the suit followed. Once his body was encased in armour, he went over to Fury and started helping him break away the trees. The rest of us followed behind the two.
Tony started blasting the trees in our way with repulser blasts and they came down crashing. Fury helped by slashing at the smaller bushes and trees. Them working together formed a pretty wide path through the forest.
Our main goal was getting water. We had to hope that if we walked long enough, we would eventually find water or food before nightfall. But with our luck, I knew that at least one thing would go wrong in our today.
As we were walk, I noticed that I was really tired today. My eyes were drooping and it felt like I could barely keep them open. Last night, I had hardly slept. And when I did, I had these horrible nightmares from the days when I was on the run. I even think I had a dream that was actually the other guys dream. Everything was tinged in a green hue and I saw myself smashing Betty into the ground. That was when I woke up in the middle of the night. I had almost turned then. I hadn't slept for a while after that. I only stayed, curled up into a tiny ball, waiting for morning. When I had finally slept again, I got another horrible nightmare and that was when I woke up only to punch Tony in the face.
…I missed Betty. A lot. Her smile, oh, her beautiful smile. And her sweet smelling hair…
I got lost in my thoughts about her as we walked on. I remembered the days before the accident and how great they were. Not having to worry about crazed military men after me. Spending every day at the lab with Betty. Oh that was bliss.
My thoughts were violently interrupted as I bumped into someone and banged my head with theirs.
"Ow." I muttered as I noticed it was Steve who I bumped into.
He turned around to look and me. "Sorry." Said the ever polite soldier with a small, slightly apprehensive smile.
"Why are we stopping?" I asked.
"I found somewhere to get water." Fury stated.
He walked on and we followed, soon coming to a halt at a farily small, partially empty clearing. It was filled with squishy looking green grass.
"There's no lake here." Tony said, stating the obvious.
"No, but there is moss." Fury said.
Clint gasped and said, "Yeah! We could squeeze the moss to get some water out of it."
"Here, let me do it," Natasha walked to the front of the group and knelt down on a spot in the small clearing where there seemed to be a lot of moss.
"Hand me a bottle."
I slung off the backpack I had been carrying and rummaged around for an empty water bottle. I found one and handed it over to Natasha.
She took the water bottle in one hand, unscrewed the cap, and then picked up a handful of moss and squeezed until water came out of it. Surprisingly, the water looked pretty clean for moss water. Of course, I had done this before on my days when I was on the run, and found that moss water was actually substantially cleaner than any lake or river water.
Once Natasha had filled the water bottle with enough water so that it was actually full, she handed it back to me. I handed her another empty bottle and she filled it with more moss water. I placed both bottle back in the backpack.
"I think that's all I can do for now. We need to find a real source of water." said Natasha.
Tony and fury took their places back at the front of the group and continued to make a path through the woods.
As Tony and Fury continued hacking, I was lost once again in my thoughts, wishing that I could undue my entire life and start again. Though I knew that was impossible.
I had to bring myself back to reality.
….
It had been so long. At least four hours since we stopped to collect the water from the moss and we haven't found a single descent clearing. It was going to be dark soon. We would have to find somewhere to sleep in this forest and if we didn't find a clearing, then we would be screwed.
Tony was still in his suit and was fighting the trees that were in the way. Natasha was helping him now, having borrowed Fury's knives for the moment.
It had slowly grown eerily quiet with the only sounds being Tony's repulser blasts and the slashes of Natasha's knife. No one from our team spoke and there weren't any sounds of animals scurrying around or birds chirping. It was quiet. Too quiet. I decided that I didn't like it.
We kept trudging on though. It was not until an hour later that we found something. Thankfully, we had found a small clearing. I could literally feel the other's relief as we came across the clearing. Natasha gave Fury back his knives while Tony deactivated his suit.
The others just placed their weapons on the ground and settled down on the grass. The forest wasn't cold so we didn't need the blankets that were in the backpack I was carrying.
Just as I was about to sit down on the grass, an ear shattering boom resonated through the forest. I jumped violently at the sound while the others had just flinched.
As I took deep breaths trying to calm down, I said, "What the hell was that?"
No one answered. Instead, Thor pointed up at the sky and said, "Look at the sky comrades."
We all looked up in one fluid motion at the sky and saw someone's face projected into the stars. He had dark black hair and olive skin. His eyes were a deep hazel.
"Who the hell is that?" Clint asked bluntly.
"I don't know…" Steve muttered.
A few minutes later, the face faded into the black night sky as if it were never there. That must've been some type of very advanced technology, to project someone's face into the sky at that magnitude, I thought to myself. I wonder how they did it…
My train of thought was once again interrupted by none other than Tony Stark saying, "Who cares? It's not like its one of us."
Steve looked at Tony with disgust written all over his face.
"Who cares? What do you mean who cares? What if it was one of our faces up there?"
"Well that would be a totally different situation, now wouldn't it?" Tony bluntly replied.
"You don't care about any of this at all, do you?"
Tony's face contorted in anger. "Don't care about this? Do you know that guy?" Tony pointed up to the sky. "Do you even know if he's the enemy or not?"
"No of course not, but at least I have some care for a living breathing human being." Steve was literally in Tony's face by now.
This was really not the time for another one of their signature arguments. I've had enough of these to last a lifetime. The other guy was getting agitated as well and that was never a good thing.
I looked over at Tony's face and saw anger etched across his face. He really was furious at Steve. I looked over at the rest of the team standing around them hesitantly, thinking about if they should intervene or not.
"You know what? You are the single, most stupid person I have ever met! Of you care so much, why don't you go find him and help him out? Leave us why don't you! It'll be better for the rest of us as well!" Tony had finally exploded. I saw hurt flash across Steve's face, but it was quickly replaced by a mask of defiance. I had to stop this somehow since it seemed that the rest of the team didn't want to do anything. This had gone too far.
It looked like both men would start throwing punches if no one stopped them soon.
I walked up to both of them and before either of them could say anything, I grabbed each man's shoulders and pulled them apart from each other violently. The looked at me in astonishment, forgetting all about their little spat that they just had. In the background, I hear my watch beeping a bit faster.
"Think before you speak to each other like that. I don't think any of you want to die here, and if you keep that up, I can assure you that that will be our fate." I snarled at them before turning around and sitting down on the grass, facing away from the others.
I placed my head in my hands and tried to tell the other guy to back off. He didn't like it when the team argued, and neither did I. The beeping of my watch slows down to the constant beep that had been going on for the entire journey here. I was getting used to the beeping and hardly noticed it anymore.
No one said a word as they settled down on the ground.
I didn't turn around to face the others until I was sure they had all gone to sleep. I looked around at the others and noticed how calm they looked when they slept. They didn't have the worry on their face that they did when they were awake.
I sighed and lay down on the ground, looking up at the sky through a patch in the trees. There were only a few stars in the sky, if any at all. Mostly, the sky just looked like a sea of black.
It kind of reminded me of how my life felt-a sea of black nothingness.
It took about two hours for me to fall asleep, and once I did, I had another nightmare about my days on the run. I woke up in a cold sweat after I saw mysel-the other guy killing Betty yet again. Her body was mangled and bloody, lying right in front of me.
I took deep breaths, trying to get a hold of myself. It was still the middle of the night and the rest of the team were still sleeping.
I lay back down, trying to relax myself.
I don't know how much time had passed before I finally sunk into another fitful sleep, but the next thing I know, someone is shaking my arm.
"…uce. Bruce, Bruce wake up."
I groggily open my eyes and come face to face with Natasha who is shaking me on the shoulder. I put a hand in front of my eyes in an attempt to block the blinding sun. I slowly sat up to find that the rest of the team already has all their things gathered.
"Wha-what? How long did I sleep for?" I ask.
"Long enough pal. Come on." I hear Tony say.
I got up from the ground and picked up the backpack beside me. I rubbed my eyes as I followed the rest of the group back into the forest. I had no idea what time of day it was and honestly, I couldn't care less. All I knew was that if I didn't get any real water or food soon, I would lose it.
Fury and Tony led the way once again, doing what they were doing yesterday. The rest of us followed behind them.
The forest wasn't as quiet as it was yesterday. Today I could hear the scuttling of animals and birds chirping from the trees.
It wasn't long into the day, before we saw a harmless little animal stumble into our path.
"I think we found our food." I had heard Clint say.
Clint began waving his arm in the air, telling us to be quiet. In the distance, I saw a small horse sized creature. It didn't exactly look like a horse. It looked strange, like a deer's body with the huge ears of an elephant. It was the most bizarre creature I had ever seen. It wasn't even a normal colour. It was a light green-blue colour.
Clint quietly drew his bow and arrow, leaning low to make his mark. The strange dear-elephant didn't seem to notice us there. It just grazed in the forest, nibbling at the grass on the ground.
Clint pulled his arm back, ready to take the shot. I saw him letting out a small breath of air before letting the arrow fly. The arrow zoomed through the air, and it seemed to narrowly miss all the trees in the way. And of course, since Clint never misses, the arrow found its mark and was embedded in the creature before it even noticed we were there.
There was a dull thunk as the arrow sunk itself into the dear-elephant. Clint had a smug look on his face, waiting for the animal to fall.
The smile slowly fell off his face as the creature slowly turned to face us. There was something strange about the way it looked at us. Its eyes were a horribly familiar green colour, and its face morphed into one of anger. My eyes widened in shock as I realized why, though it was already too late.
The animals muscles ripped and tore as it slowly tripled in size right in front of us. We all watched on in shock as its skin colour changed from that green-blue colour to a deep forest green. Froth dripped from its huge maw right. The animal was easily as tall as the tallest trees. The trees beside it toppled from the shear size of the creature which I could easily identify now as a hulk creature.
"Oh my god…" I whispered.
Tony, Clint and Thor sprung into action, being that they were at the front of the group. Tony's repulser blasts seemed to have no effect at all on the tough hide of the creature, as well as Clint's explosive arrows. Thor kept hitting it with strong blasts of lightning, but even that didn't seem to be doing anything.
I slowly recovered my initial shock from seeing this hulk creature and yelled, "We have to go! NOW!" The rest turned to look at me, and were just about to take my advice, when I noticed that the hulk creature had other plans.
At the sound of my voice, the creature turned to me, green eyes boring into my skull. It sniffed the air as if it sensed my presence and it bared its teeth into a gruesome smile.
"Bruce, get away!" someone yelled. I had just enough time to drop and roll to the side before the creature lunged at me. I steadied my breathing as I got up from the ground. The creature seemed to be recovering from banging into a nearby tree head first.
The hulk animal turned around, looking at me once again as it let out an animalistic roar. It shook my very bone as I covered my ears to stop myself from becoming deaf. I backed up against a tree and soon realized that I was trapped. The creature seemed to only go for me and not the others, I observed. At least the others are safe, I thought.
As the creature stalked up to me slowly, Tony was blasting it from above while Clint and Natasha were shooting guns and arrows at it from below. It really didn't seem to be doing much.
"Bruce, it can smell you! You have to turn into the Hulk!" I heard Tony's voice say.
If I turned into the other guy, the team would have two hulks to deal with. I couldn't do that to them. And I doubted the other guy would like the presence of another hulk around him. The others would just end up as collateral damage. I had to lead the creature away from the others.
The hulk snapped at me again. I dove to the side in the last second and landed on a broken tree branch, hard on my back. I groaned in pain as I scrambled up, my breathing laboured and my heartbeat speeding dangerously. I could feel the beginning of a transformation coming on. I had to get away.
Just as I could see the animal rearing back for another snap at me, I turned and ran from the team into the thick forest. I could hear screams of protests coming from the team, but I ignored them. If it meant leading the creature away from them, I would split up from the rest of the team to do it.
As I ran, I could hear the hulk animal tearing up the trees behind me. Trees came crashing down around me as it scrambled after me. I ran as fast as I could away from the team and into the forest. I didn't risk looking back for the fear of slowing down. I could feel the hulk banging around in my head, just begging to be let out.
The creature snarled and roared as it chased me deeper into the forest. Once I finally thought it was safe enough and I was far enough away from the team, I relaxed and let out all of my anger, fear and frustration out. It flowed over me in waves as I unleashed the full fury of the hulk. I heard myself let out a loud roar and it was like I was listening to myself from somewhere really far away. I took refuge in a small corner of the hulk's mind as the hulk took over and I sank into a calming black.
….,…
The hulk was angry.
He didn't like the creature in front of it, trying to hurt his friends-the avengers.
The hulk roared in the strange creature's face and it backed down. The hulk was easily bigger than it. He placed a well aimed punch to its face and it flew back, crashing into the trees.
Hulk sneered at it, egging for it to come forward. It slowly got up and before the hulk could react, the thing punched the hulk in the face, and he fell into a tree. The tree toppled behind him.
Hulk backed away, trying to lead it farther into the forest. He knew that the tin man and the others would try and follow him, and the hulk didn't like to be followed.
The hulk and the creature started to throw punch after punch at each other. Soon, hulk got tired of the creature.
"Hulk smash!" He shouted as he picked up the creature and threw into the ground.
Hulk was proud of his work until it started to get up once again. He let out an earth-shattering roar and started to punch its face into the ground violently.
Once the hulk was satisfied enough to know that it wasn't going to get up again, he turned around and was starting to walk away when he was met with the strangest sight. Two puny humans, a guy and a girl, were staring up at him. The boy was holding a pointy stick that the hulk soon realized was glowing. The girl was also holding one of those sticks, but hers was much smaller.
The hulk grumbled under his breath as he saw the puny boy lunging for his foot. The stick sunk into the hulk's foot and he roared. It didn't hurt, it was just that he had bad experience with puny human's and there big or small sticks.
Hulk took a step back. He didn't try to hurt these humans. A voice in his head was telling him not to.
"Stop. Stop. Don't smash. Stop."
It was constant and he couldn't make it shut up. He clawed at his head and roared into the sky to try and make it shut up. It didn't work.
So the hulk had no choice but to listen to the annoying puny voice that belonged to none other than puny Banner in his head.
He looked down at the humans. The girl seemed to put her hand out in front of the boy. It seemed to stop him from sticking his glowing stick into Hulk again.
The Hulk was confused. He would've thought that they would be attacking him by now just like every other human had when they saw him, but they weren't.
He knew they were scared though. He could smell their fear-it was coming out of their bodies.
"Let me out." Hulk heard Banner's voice in his head again. He looked down at the puny humans once again and found that they didn't look like a threat towards him. They didn't have their pointy sticks in their hands anymore.
So the hulk gave into Banner's voice reluctantly and let him out yet again. He slipped into a dark corner of Banner's mind as he though no more, but saw everything.
….
Thank god the other guy let me out, Bruce thought as the transformation completed. He staggered forward, realizing two things. One was that he still had clothes on. Two, was that he was in front of two very random looking teenagers who had more than likely seen his monster.
Bruce had just enough time to think, 'Oh damn, this might not go so well' before he fell forward and sank into darkness once again.
Koodos to all of you who already know who the two teenagers are!
Well I think its pretty obvious…right?!
Anyways, next chapter will be Nico. Y'all will get to find how he died! Or did he really die…? Who knows? Well, actually I do but still…
-Detective DG
PS: Don't forget to review guys! I really appreciate them!