Vital Communication
Essential Warning for this Chapter: Trigger warnings for this one folks: mentions of abuse, nightmares, torture (not graphic). Read with caution. PS, the tense shift in this chapter is deliberate, and should only happen the once. I think. Just for the section in question, I've marked it if you want to skip it.
Chapter 6
11:00pm
Tony is angry, frustrated and confused. Two of those emotions he hates. Why was the military sniffing around the tower? Was it for Bruce? For the armor? He was tempted to roust Rhodey from wherever the Air Force had stashed him, but refrains, thinking he needs to handle this one alone.
He paces in Pepper's office, snarling orders at JARVIS. He'd discarded the black tuxedo jacket as soon as they arrived, and was now rolling the cuffs of the pale blue silk shirt, bow tie also gone.
"Okay, change the security parameters. No inch of Stark Tower goes without an eyeball. We'll create Mini-mes for the clean floors. All of R&D goes into password lockdown starting 10 minutes ago. Personnel will use SSN as their passwords for now."
Pepper snorts distractedly, knowing Tony would probably override the system regardless of whatever measures he put in place. Sometimes he was lazy that way. She scrolls through employee records, scanning for a common thread, if any, for why there was a military presence in her tower.
"New measures implemented sir. The password system needs another hour to go live, so I have taken the liberty of locking down the R&D levels," JARVIS informs his maker. Tony's face takes on a grim and feral smile. Pepper types notes into her own tablet, finding interesting information on the 8 people who had been visited by the military. He settles uneasily in a chair beside her desk.
"Tony, you should help me with the meeting with Jason Thomas. I have this proposal to give to all the department managers later," Pepper breaks into his thoughts, giving him a piece of paper with a short statement on it.
"You'll give this in the morning?", Tony asks, scanning it quickly before dropping it to her desk. She nods.
Tony asks another question, "And Thomas?"
"Do you want him fired?", Pepper bluntly asks him in return.
"Can we replace him?"
"Not right now."
"Damn. We could use our spy friends," Tony gets up to pace again, one hand scrubbing through his hair, the only other visible sign of his own nerves.
"Can you contact them without getting Fury involved?", Pepper asks. She still had a cell number for when Natasha was her assistant, but was unsure it was valid anymore.
"Maybe. JARVIS, do we have a super secret code?", Tony flips the query.
"I will attempt to track down Ms. Romanov. Do you also wish me to find the rest of the Avengers?"
"Might as well," Tony shrugs, "Invited them to a..." Tony looks at Pepper for help.
"Well, you wanted to redo the mansion for 'team activities'. Get their input," Pepper reminds him.
"Go with that, J-man," Tony agrees.
They spend a few minutes in silence, then...
"Mister Stark, you are needed on level 30. Dr. Banner appears to be in distress," JARVIS cuts in. Tony surges out of the office before the AI stops speaking. "Any green present?", he yells, running for the private elevator that ran straight to the penthouse.
"No sir, not yet," JARVIS opens the elevator doors just as Tony hits them.
"Priority override, JARVIS, get this bucket up to 30, NOW!", Tony demands, anxiously bouncing on his toes. The elevator shifts as JARVIS took rare control and forces it upward more quickly than normal.
11:30pm **Warning, potentially graphic material ahead**
Upstairs, away in his own hell, Bruce is lost in nightmares. Images of an old, uncontrolled rampage skittered across his mind's eye. The Hulk watches from his place, impotently raging, desiring control, knowing it was unsafe to wrest it away.
Something had triggered them, and these memories of pain and fire. The memories were filled with so much pain – Betty's sad, sad eyes; her still form covered in medical ephemera; Rick Jones walking away, head bowed. Each image came with wrenching heart break, and howls of loss.
Darker, older memories bubbled to the surface, the one of the death of his mother at the hands of his abusive father. Earlier scenes of her attempting to cover the signs of the marks he left on her body. One, slightly satisfying and grim memory of a visit to a lonely grave and the yelling/thrown punch from his then drunk of a father. He'd dodged, and was rewarded by Fate who saw fit to balance the scales. The man went down, slipping on wet grass. Bruce, a fit of blind rage overtaking him in that moment, jumped on him and grasped his head. He slammed it down, hearing a dull, sick crack where bone met granite. The disgusting being he'd known as "Father" trembled once, and lay still. The adrenaline flushed from his system, leaving Bruce nearly too weak to move after that. But he did, going back to school, leaving the cooling body to be found by the cemetary's caretaker at dusk. The police in town washed their hands of it.
Bruce groans in his sleep, tossing across the wide expanse of bed, sheets tangling around his writhing form.
Memories of the last encounter with the military replace the rampage. Images filled with blood skate into his mind. His time working for the Army is coated in blood, the majority of it his own. After the Incident where the Hulk was 'born', too many subsequent run-ins taught Bruce a level of fear and avoidance his father had never succeeded in. Experiments his captors carried out on him, testing his ability to heal from any injury. It had made him glad that his work overseas was never in pristine conditions similar to First World medical establishments. He had felt a surge of fear just from being in any sterile environment and it was a test of his control at first to hide those reactions.
Several experiments tested how well he handled healing from impalement – multiple locations; degloving – small and large areas; trepanning; multiple broke bones; exsanguination; asphyxiation. Everything done to him was nothing short of experimenting on a lab animal, or dozens. Nothing that came close to being humane in dealing with the 'lab accident'.
Memories of long torture sessions, forced transformations and bitter laughter finally forces Bruce awake, screaming. His voice deep and guttural, almost Hulk deep. His eyes mostly emerald green as that being tries to force his way out in an attempt to protect their fragile peace.
**End triggery content**
Tony hears the scream two floors down. "Dammit JARVIS, get this bucket moving faster!", he cries. The AI silently complies. In a calmer moment, Tony might wonder at that, but for now, his focus is on Bruce.
Bruce tries to jump from the bed and throw himself across the room, but the tangled sheets around his legs arrests most of the movement. He falls face first to the carpet, and cries out from the surprise knock to his nose. It wasn't enough of a distraction though, it just had Hulk surging even further to the fore, snapping more of Bruce's control. Bruce roars, straining his vocal cords. His skin taking on a distinct green, strained, overly muscled look.
11:45pm
Tony hits the door of the apartment, slamming it open to rush through and fall to his knees beside Bruce on the floor of the bedroom.
"Bruce! I'm here, it's okay. You're safe, I swear!", Tony cries urgently, grabbing the physicist's arms. Bruce jerks, his enhanced strength more than enough to break Tony's grip.
"Tony, no!", he growls, voice so deep it was animalistic in Tony's ears.
"Yes Bruce. I'm staying. Go head, let Mean Green out if it'll help, but I'm not going anywhere," Tony is adamant, reaching again for his friend.
Bruce's incredibly bright green eyes snap to his own brown ones. "You're a reckless fool, Tin Man," the words were half Bruce and half Hulk, and part of Tony's mind whirl with fascination at this new layer to Robert Bruce Banner.
"Just do it already, Banner," Tony snarks, holding onto a shoulder. Bruce grunts, then lets go, the change ripping through him with no subtly. The sleep pants just shred and hang, tattered from the Hulk's waist as the large green being takes form in front of Tony. His hand having slipped off Banner's shoulder during the shift, he holds completely still in an instinctive nod toward self-preservation, waiting for awareness to come.
Hulk growls a little, his head clearly touching the ceiling of the bedroom. He sniffs a few times, trying to orient himself and establish any outside threats. Easily he catches Banner's smells: lemongrass, old paper, tea leaves, spices.
Then he catches new ones: hydraulic fluid, sweat, motor oil, solder, alcohol, metal, man. He turns in place, breathing deep, taking in huge lungsful of air to firmly press these scents into his memory.
"Tin Man," he grunts, laying apple green eyes on Tony, who crouches on the floor before him.
Tony looks up and smiles, in what he hopes is a disarming smile, "Yup, it's me. How are you, Big Green?"
Hulk grunts a laugh. To Tony, it sounds like rocks rubbing together. Tony is the only one to ever not treat him automatically as a monster right from the start.
"Banner worried. Thinks not safe now," Hulk grinds out, arms tensing, hands clenching into fists.
"We know. We're attempting to fix it now," Tony explains staying close to floor.
"We?", Hulk asks. He knew Banner had been asleep, so wondered who else Tony was talking about.
'Damn', Tony thinks quickly. "You probably don't know Pepper yet. She's our friend, Bruce's and mine. And she can help keep you two safe," he tries. Without Pepper actually with him, it was a risk to talk about her, but he had to take the chance he could explain who Pepper was. Hulk was smart, he knew that.
"Safe," Hulk says, remembering a flash of red hair, the scent of fresh flowers.
"Yes, she is. And she wants to make sure you stay safe as well, all right?", Tony says, going to his knees on the floor. "Want to sit with me, or break things?" Tony wonders, though he truly wonders where they'd go if the answer is "Break stuff".
Hulk thinks for a long moment. "Will sit," he agrees finally, and thuds to the floor like a four year old. Tony was glad for the reinforced construction of the building at this and all upper levels when he only feels the slightest vibrations.
12:00am
"Can you tell me what happened? Or let Bruce out to explain?", Tony asks him after several minutes pass in companionable silence. Hulk huffs, but knowing there's no danger, and no need to protect Banner from Stark, right now, feels no choice but to recall the doctor and have him face down the Tin Man's questions. So, without answering Tony, Hulk closes his apple green eyes, mentally snarls at Banner within the mindscape, and triggers the change.
The change catches Tony by surprise, but he watches the reverse transformation with the same fascination he's held thus far, wishing he could ask JARVIS to record, or even IF he's been recording.
"Aurgh!", Bruce cries out, coming back to himself once the reversal had completed. His much smaller form has toppled over on one side, letting him curl up in a fetal position from the pain of 2 quick succession transformations. Tony let out a low whistle, "That was impressive, Banner. The videos don't do the change justice, you know."
Bruce flinches, more cold than a loss of clothes would ever account for. He curls up tighter on himself.
"Go away, Tony," he grits out, wishing to be alone.
"Ah, no. Not leaving. Told you that," Tony replies haughtily, getting up and heading to a bureau where he rummages for a new pair of pants.
Bruce hears the movements the other man makes, the soft steps across the plush carpet, drawers in the bureau sliding as he looks for clothing. He wonders at Tony's continued presence.
"Here," Tony tosses the new pair at Bruce, who doesn't catch them. They fall in a tangled heap over his side. "Can you get up, or do you need help?" Tony bends over to look at Bruce's face. Bruce groans, turning his face into the pile underneath him.
"Yeah, give me a hand, if you'll just stop," he says quietly, extending a trembling hand. Tony grasps it and hauls Bruce to his feet. Bruce stumbles reaching vertical, clutching the pants in his other hand.
"Right, let me change. Then, living room. Can you manage to boil water for tea? And see if there's something a touch stronger in the cupboards for a shot or two?", Bruce informs Tony, who stares at him a little, then nods. The two men split up, one for the kitchen, the other for the bathroom.