Aright guys, chapter 22.

I just want to give a special thank you to a reviewer who's just amazing. HarryPotter1234, thank you for being a loyal reviewer!

Now here, we get to know what happens to Bruce and Annabeth after Percy left them during the night. It is the next day and they have waken up.

So here we go!

Bruce

This was turning out to be a very strange week.

And what I didn't know was that it was about to get even stranger.

It was now early morning and the sun had barely risen. I had woken up just minutes ago and I immediately noticed that something was wrong.

Something was very wrong, and it involved Percy. When I looked around our camp site, I couldn't see him anywhere.

Honestly, I still didn't know what to think about both, Percy or Annabeth. I still couldn't believe that I had spilled one of my most darkest secrets to them. And I hadn't even told Tony the secret. I had just broken down and I couldn't even help myself.

I was a little mad at myself for doing that. I was supposed to be stronger than that. But for some reason, I didn't regret telling them.

Percy and Annabeth…I trusted them for some reason. I had a strong gut feeling that they were good people. And I knew that if all of the Half Bloods were like them, the Avengers could trust them. I knew that the right thing was to ally with the Half Bloods. If we fought as one big team, we could have a chance in defeating Loki and Luke.

It's like they say, strength in numbers.

And I also noticed that Percy and Annabeth weren't as afraid of the other guy as I thought they would be. After all, they had fully seen the other guy standing right in front of them and they hadn't run. The first reaction that many people would get if they were placed in a similar position would be to run, and they didn't do that for some reason.

So that's why, when I woke up this morning only to find that Percy was not with us, I was a little concerned.

I looked over at Annabeth just to make sure that at least she was there, and sure enough, she was.

I walked over to her and attempted to wake her up.

"Annabeth. Hey annabeth."

She shuffled around a bit before she finally opened her eyes. "Wha? Huh? Bruce, what's up?" She mumbled.

I waited for her to sit up before I said, "Percy's gone."

Her eyes grew more alert. "What?!"

I sighed. "He's not here anymore. I woke up just a few minutes ago and didn't see him anywhere."

Her body grew rigid. "Do you think he was kidnapped?"

I looked around at our camp site for any signs of a struggle. I didn't find any. "I don't think so. There are no signs of a fight."

Annabeth stood up. "But why would he leave us like that?" I noticed the slightly hurt expression on her face.

"I don't know. But it doesn't look like he had a choice." I looked over at the general area that Percy had slept in last night. On the ground lay the backpack that he was carrying. "He would've token the backpack with him."

"We have to find him." Annabeth steeled her face with determination.

I agreed. "Come on, let's grab our stuff and leave."

I bent down and grabbed the backpack that Percy had carried. Annabeth picked up her lethal looking glowing knife and we both left.

I still had no idea why that knife glowed. I hadn't asked either. And then there was the question of why Annabeth and Percy looked so surprised when I had told them I could see their weapons. They were fricken pointing it right in front of my face, of course I could see them. And what was so special about the weapons anyways?

What was so special about them?

They did tell me that they were the offsprings of gods, but for some reason, I had a hard time believing them. Those stories were just that-stories. They weren't real.

Were they?

Apparently Percy was the son of the great god Poseidan and Annabeth was the daughter of Athena, goddess of battle and wisdom. Did that mean they possessed powers as well?

But they were just teenagers! They didn't even look that dangerous.

But…Percy did tell me that he had powers over water at times. I had a hard time believing that as well, as they were natural born powers. They hadn't been given their powers. I didn't know anyone who was born with powers.

Excluding Thor of course because he is a god, none of the Avengers were born with their powers. We had all acquired them sometime in our life. In my case, I had acquired them against my will and they were more of a curse than any power I knew.

So naturally, I had a hard time believing they were born with their powers.

But, I did have an easier time believing that they were the offsprings of gods. I was giving into them. I stopped being suspicious of them as much as I was when I first met them. I knew that I could trust them for some reason. After all, if they had wanted to kill me, they would've at least tried by now even though they would never succeed in it.

So I decided to trust them. And my goal was to unite them with us, the Avengers. Without me knowing the Half Bloods before hand, the Avengers would never be able to trust them. I would convince them to trust the Half Bloods.

And in the meanwhile, I would find answers. Like if the Half Bloods really did have powers. And why they had looked so surprised when I told them that I could see their weapons.

Annabeth and I started walking through the forest once again.

The strange, constant beeping of my watch was acting as white noise. I learned to drown it out from hearing it so much. I still wondered why it was doing that. Was there something wrong with it?

After some poking and prodding to it the previous day, I had come to the conclusion that it had nothing to do with the mechanics of the watch.

Other than that, I had also noticed that this watch was definitely not the same that Betty had given to me. It did look uncannily similar, but it definitely wasn't the same. I remembered the feel of Betty's watch. How the grooves and ridges felt when I stroked my finger along its surface.

This one just felt…wrong. If felt different.

Annabeth's voice broke the silence.

"What is that?"

"what is what?"

"That beeping from your watch." She asked.

I sighed and held it up for her to see. "It monitors my heartbeat. If it goes past 200 beats per second, I transform. This watch tells me by beeping faster if it is in that danger zone."

Annabeth cocked her head to the side. "…But then why is it beeping now?"

I looked at her in the eyes and said, "I have no idea."

Thankfully, she didn't question me further. Though, I thought I had a pretty good idea what she was thinking.

As we walked through the forest, we found a small path that was cleared by someone…or something. It was small, but had plenty of sword slashed through trail so we decided to follow it for better or for worse.

We had followed it for an hour before something happened.

And it was definitely not good.

"Bruce, look at that." Annabeth said when we were passing by a small clearing. She walked over to a spot on the clearing where something shiny lay. I bit my lip before following her to see what it was.

"What do you think it is?" She asked as she stopped to look at it close up.

I raised an eyebrow apprehensively. "I don't know but I think we should leave it alone."

For some reason, I had a really strong feeling that this was a trap.

Annabeth didn't seem to hear me as she reached out to touch the object.

My eyes widened. She really shouldn't be touching that!

"No Annabeth, don't!"

But it was too late. The damage was done. Annabeth had picked it up and was holding it when it started glowing.

"Ah!" She exclaimed as she let go of the thing and it dropped to the floor. She backed away and I backed away with her.

The thing was on the floor and it was actually glowing and slowly getting bigger. It let off a strange whirring noise as it grew until it was bigger than the both of us.

My watch started to beep faster.

The thing almost reminded me of one of Tony's robots. Except that this was much more dangerous looking.

The thing soon took on a shape. It grew robotic-like claws and looked a lot like a tank. It had huge tank wheels and something that looked like a tank's body as well. There was a huge missile launcher at the top of it, sitting menacingly, just biding its time. It was not at least three times our size and had thankfully stopped growing.

That didn't make it look any less lethal. It had multiple missile launchers coming out of the sides of its body. It looked like a robot had crossed over with an army tank. It even had robotic arms so that it could grab onto anything. It had a dome for a head and a single bar that went from each side of the dome. There was one glowing circle in the middle of the bar that kept zooming from side to side. One could only suggest that was its eyes.

The thing brought back some bad memories. The times Ross would come after me with his army of tanks in some third world country…

I pushed the thoughts to the back of my brain so that I could focus on the problem at hand.

I would only think later that during its transformation would have been a good time to run. Instead Annabeth and I had stared at it like two idiots.

The tanks "eye" stopped moving and fixed on the two of us. There was low whine as the missile launcher at the top of the tank started glowing.

"Scatter!" I heard Annabeth yell.

I dove to the side as quick as I could and landed on the grass hard. As I landed, I saw a laser shoot at where Annabeth and I had been just a second ago. I heard my watch beat frantically out of control and I tried to lower it.

"Annabeth?" I shouted to find out where she was.

The tank turned toward me as I shouted, no doubt following the sound of my voice.

Bad idea Banner.

It let out a volley of attacks at me and I scrambled up and ran in the opposite direction. I quickly took cover behind a tree and I suddenly felt fire lick at my sides.

So this tank could spew fire as well now? Just my luck.

I tentatively got out from the cover of the tree just in time to see Annabeth scramble up from the ground on the opposite side of the tank.

She ran over to me as fast as she could without the tank noticing. As she rounded on me, I grabbed her shoulders so that she wouldn't fall to the ground.

"Look, you have to transform Bruce."

I tried to interrupt, but she held a hand up to my face.

"You're the only one who can fight this thing. Do you really think this," she held up her knife. "Will kill that?" she pointed at the tank.

I scrunched my eyes and sighed when I came to terms with the fact that she was actually correct. I was our only hope. I put my hands on her shoulders and held them firmly.

"Look, if anything, anything at all happens, you run. Do you understand me? You run the hell away from me."

Annabeth nodded slowly. "Wait, I have an idea." she took the backpack I was holding and rummaged around for a bit before she took out a sleek machine gun. "This will distract the tank for a while."

I smirked despite the situation, but it quickly fell off my face.

I could still feel the fear in her eyes. I looked at the floor and then looked back up into her eyes.

"Hey. Do you trust me?"

She paused and I could almost hear the gears in her brain turning. After what felt like an eternity, she said, "Yes."

I let out a small breath of relief.

"Good."

I walked a few ways away from Annabeth and let out all of my anger and fear and frustration. All of my pent up emotions rolled out of me in waves, crashing onto a devastated beach's shore and I felt the transformation begin.

I felt muscles and bones pop as I doubled in size. I roared in pain toward the sky as the transformation finally completed after an agonizing few seconds.

Then I knew no more.

Hulk

Something is wrong

The hulk was not in control.

At least, not in full control.

He was doing all of the smashing, yes, but he could feel Banner in his head. He wasn't gone. Not fully gone.

This is not right.

He roared at the unpleasant feeling. After all, that is what he did best.

In front of him, he saw a strange thing that was about the same size as the Hulk. He scoffed. This thing was nothing. Hulk had taken on things twice this size before.

But the Hulk soon realized that this wasn't all that puny. He didn't think that when pointy things started shooting from the puny thing.

The Hulk tried to turn his attention back to the thing in front of him, but for some reason it didn't feel…right.

Someone was inside of his head and he wasn't asleep.

Bruce

Okay, something is definitely not right.

He was in his head, but then again, he wasn't. This wasn't him, but it was.

He could see everything that was happening, and he had a consciousness. He could feel and think. This didn't happen when he was the Hulk.

And that was what was wrong.

He was the Hulk and at the same time, he was himself.

It was like they were two people. The hulk had taken full control of Bruce's body and he was totally fine with that. He still knew what he was doing, or rather, what the Hulk was doing. And at the moment, the Hulk was smashing at the tank in front of him with whatever he could get his hands on.

At that moment, Bruce got an idea.

He gave a command to the Hulk.

He told him to break off the missile launcher attached to the tank.

Something came over his (or was it the Hulks? This was all very confusing) body. It became rigid and something washed over the Hulk because he actually listened.

Now it was getting weird if it hadn't been before. Bruce was not used to this at all.

Was this what had happened at the cornucopia? No…he had been himself when that had happened.

For a second. Bruce felt like he was losing control of the Hulk all over again. He strengthened his mind and regained partial control once again. This was crazy.

How the hell was he doing this?

Was this even possible?

Ah, I have to focus on the problem at hand.

He directed his thoughts to the Hulk once again and told him to break off all the weapon launching contraptions there were on the tank.

Again, that same rigid feeling took over the Hulk's body and he actually listened. Bruce watched as the Hulk tore at the tank and roared at the sky above. He managed to successfully break off all the missile launchers.

Bruce thought he was going crazy. This actually worked.

Overwhelming glee took over his thoughts. It was like he was the Hulk and he was Bruce at the same time. Still…the Hulk did have a bit more control than Bruce was comfortable with that, but Bruce could live with that. After all, it was better than nothing.

The Hulk did still call the shots, but at least Bruce was conscious enough to know what he…the Hulk was doing.

Hulk

He could feel Banner in his head. He could feel him trying to give orders.

And the Hulk had no choice except to follow them, for the Hulk could not control himself.

And this was a new feeling to the Hulk.

Most of the time, he was in control when he was let out of his makeshift cage in Banner's mind. But this time he was not.

And he hated the feeling.

Though when Banner was not giving any orders, the Hulk was in control. He could do whatever he wanted. But not when Banner spoke.

Like when he heard Banner's puny voice in his head telling him to attack the pointy things that came out of the tank in front of him. He had no choice but to do just that.

And yes, he did know what the thing in front of him was. Stupid Ross would always come after the Hulk with those things, trying to hurt Banner, the Hulk.

He would always stop Ross.

The Hulk raised his arms and brought them down with huge force onto the tank. He started to rip out the pointy things stuck on the sides of the tank. He growled at it when they started to whine. He brought his arms down once again and then the tank didn't give any more noises.

He bared his teeth in a toothy grin as the tank fell apart into pieces in front of him.

Bruce

Bruce watched as the Hulk smashed the tank into pieces.. He could see Annabeth crouched behind a tree far in the corner.

He tried to divert the Hulks attention away from her and surprisingly enough, it worked. Bruce was definitely not used to this.

Not at all.

The tank gave out another small whine as it shorted and sparks flew out of it. pieces of electronic debris fell to the floor as Bruce continued to watch from the Hulk's point of view.

Somehow, he could feel the Hulk's emotions inside of him as well. The only emotions he felt from that side were rage, satisfaction at destroying the robot, and pride. Like he was happy with himself for destroying the thing.

Bruce tried one last experiment.

Hulk let me out.

He put all of his mind power into that one sentence. Bruce could feel the Hulk's mind resisting. He could hear the Hulk let out a roar into the sky as Bruce started to win the battle of the minds. He always did have more brain power than the Hulk did.

Let me out.

He put suggestion and power into his mind voice. Bruce could feel the Hulk's annoyance at him and how the Hulk wanted him gone, asleep. The Hulk should've been able to feel Bruce's emotions as well, if he weren't so primitive.

Let me out.

This time it worked. The Hulk's mind power collapsed in on itself and Bruce could feel the beginning of a transformation back to himself began. This had to be the first time that he actually felt the transformation back to normal. He usually only felt the transformation from himself to the Hulk.

It felt strange.

It was almost like his muscles were collapsing in against each other. They grinded and squeezed as his bones began to shrink.

That was when he realized that the Hulk actually used to feel pain when this transformation used to take place. Though he got so used to it that he could barely feel it anymore. He just buries the pain deep inside.

Just like Bruce did.

Bruce shoved that thought deep into his own brain when the transformation completed. As he stood in the middle of the wreckage, swaying from side to side, he saw Annabeth approach.

Just as he was about to fall forward, he felt hands catch him to prevent him from having a face plant with the ground.

Then he sunk into darkness once again.

I woke up to Annabeth hovering over me. I slowly lifted myself into a sitting position from the ground using my arms. I blinked my eyes owlishly to clear my vision and quickly noticed Annabeth looking at me with a worried expression on her face. She still wasn't used to my transformation it seemed.

I doubted she would ever get used to it.

I never did.

There was a pounding in my head like there was after every transformation. It would only go away after an hour.

Annabeth held out a hand for me to pull myself up with and I slowly accepted it. I was pulled off the ground and Annabeth put her hands on my shoulders to prevent me from falling again.

"You okay?" she asked breathlessly.

I scrunched my eyebrows together until I finally said, "…yeah…"

I wasn't sure if I was ready to tell her about the strange transformation yet or not. Hell, I wasnt even sure if I wanted to tell Tony yet. First, I had to find out how and why that had happened. I had just transformed into the Hulk and I was conscious throughout it.

I confirmed a long time ago that I never knew what happened to anything when I turned into the Hulk. But this time it did. Was it something I ate? Something I touched? Was it this place in general? I was completely clueless and I had nowhere to start.

I started to fumble with my hands subconsciously. I had to find out why this happened. I had to find out or I would go crazy.

I hadn't realized that Annabeth had been watching me the entire time I was having my internal argument. I focused my eyes on her and saw that she had a questioning expression on her face. Then she took a half step back. It was so subtle that you wouldn't have noticed it unless you were looking for it. And I was definitely looking for it.

I knew what it meant. She was scared. One thing about having the Hulk share space in my head was that I could sense fear. I could even see it. I trained my eyes to watch for it.

It gave me assurance for some reason. That way I knew that if the person was scared, they would not get attached to me. That way when the time came, I could leave them with no big hassle.

It was a strange feeling, sensing someone's fear. It was like a gut feeling and I was sensing it off of Annabeth now.

I tried my best to ignore the feeling as I picked up the backpack that Annabeth had tossed onto the ground. I was just a bit surprised that it hadn't been destroyed during the battle.

"We should leave. We made too much noise." Annabeth said bluntly.

I nodded in agreement. I saw her subtly brush her hand against her thigh. I had a strong feeling that her knife was there. She probably put it there so that she could have it close to hand if something were to happen. Specifically me turning into the hulk again.

I sighed and we started walking again.

We walked through trees and bushes, all the while resuming our search to look for Percy.

In the back of my mind was the ever-present worry of what had happened to the other Avengers. Were they okay? Did anything else other than the Hulk creature that I had fought attacked them. I had to find them as quickly as I could. I…needed the familiar faces for comfort.

It was funny that I thought that at that exact moment.

"Hey, did you hear that?" Annabeth asked out of the blue. I took a moment to listen. I slowly started to hear muffled voices and the snapping of tree branches.

My eyes widened. "Yeah, I do" I followed the sounds. They were coming from somewhere opposite to us. There must have been another trail right next to ours. I stepped off the trail we were on and parted the thick trees that were in the way. Annabeth followed along behind me.

It took us about five minutes to get to the other trail. I got ready to face the worst, but I was met with something much of the opposite.

I smiled softly as I saw who approached

Well, there you have it.

Long chapter! A present to all y'all. Please leave a review to tell me how I did! I really appreaciate it.

-Detective DG