Pulling the Puzzles Apart
Part 11, Ch. 2
Krasnoselsky District
St. Petersburg, Russia
Clint slung his bag over his shoulder as he stood next to a ship along the seaport at the Stela Leningrad war memorial and let out a deep breath that froze in the air. He had no idea where in Leningrad Banner would be, but he'd put the clues together that'd been left for him on the flashdrive, which wasn't much. The whole place was a rust bucket if he ever saw one, but the old buildings and seaport that had been instrumental in the Soviet Union during the second world war were still operational. Though, the business and objectives had changed since the '40's.
He didn't know why Banner wanted him there, but there he was. In the damn daylight. He had to get out of sight as quickly as possible. There were people all around the seaport, dock workers, visitors, even children. Trying to find a way into Russia had been the hard part, especially since he wanted to keep off the grid and under the radar, even from SHIELD. He'd hitched a ride on a transport ship, sending shipments of crates to the seaport city of Saint Petersburg. There were a lot of seaports in the Russian city, but for some reason this one was where Banner wanted him. Now, all he had to do was figure out why.
Figured he'd take a look around since all he was doing was waiting. A crane moved above his head as it was unloading the cargo from the ship he'd departed. Stepping over railroad tracks, and by passing a freight train, he headed along the dock, weaving around shipping containers and barrels. He bypassed anyone looking like security as he kept his head down as he walked. Getting between two tall buildings that blocked out the later afternoon sun, he slipped into the shadows.
It was there when he felt the air not quite right as the lights in the building next to him flickered and dimmed. He stopped, hand going to his belt for the bow as his other hand worked the arrow out from the sleeve of his jacket. A shadow of the man appeared next to him on the snow-covered ground.
"I wouldn't."
Turning to face the man who spoke those words, he eyed Anton Rudenko as he felt his hand grip the handle of the knife. Anton appeared the same as the last time they'd met as he wore a raincoat, his hair still white, and that scar on the left side of his face. He let the arrow slip out from his sleeve and in a matter of seconds had it notched on the bow that had only required a flick of his wrist to extend from the length of a multi-tool into the full-length of a bow.
Taking aim, he let it loose. The arrow missed Anton by a couple of feet above his head. He smirked as Anton barely flinched, keeping his eyes on him. Over Anton's shoulder, he saw the arrow twist in the air and come back.
That was when Anton smirked and said, "Better move, kid," right before he jerked his body to the side.
The arrow missed by mere inches, and he had to jump and roll to the side as it whizzed by him and impaled itself into the ground where he'd once stood. Letting out a tight breath, he looked up at Anton in disbelief.
"Bruce warned me about that boomerang arrow of yours. Clever. No one would expect for an arrow to come back around." Anton then reached his hand out for him to take. "Time to get up off your ass, kid. That mad scientist boyfriend of yours needs your help."
He stared at the offered hand for a split second before grabbing hold and letting Anton help him to his feet. After taking a moment to pull his arrow from the ground, he retracted the bow and slipped the arrow back up his jacket sleeve. It was his secret weapon and he liked to keep it hidden. "Is this where A.I.M's headquarters is located?"
"Not here, no, but further North. They have a facility near Lake Ladoga. Before we could get close, we were stopped by an invisible force. I had to leave Bruce behind."
"You left him?!" he asked angrily.
"It was for the best. You see, when I'm around Bruce, I drain him of the radiation that gives him the ability to become the Hulk. If I had stayed, he would have died."
Clint remembered how this man can move and asked, "Is that how you can…appear out of thin air? You absorb the energy around you?"
Anton shrugged as he said, "You could say that. I just…do what I do. I stopped questioning 'how' a long time ago."
The sun was setting lower in the sky, making the shadows longer and the inside of the buildings darker. "How'd you find me?"
Anton didn't answer him as he looked around the buildings. His eyes followed his worried ones as he spotted a few people exiting through the doors. They were wondering why the power had gone out in the building.
"We need to leave."
Anton gave a nod as he said, "Right you are," as he suddenly grabbed him as if giving him a hug. Clint felt his body tense as he resisted the urge to break loose in order to hit the guy when he felt a freezing cold overtake him as everything went dark.
He knew, in that moment, he was slipping through space.
75 Kilometers Outside St. Petersburg, Russia
The grey overcast sky turned a violent shade of green as I felt the electricity surge through my body. Oh, God, how my muscles ached for the sweet release into the Hulk as my teeth nearly cracked as cartilage popped and expanded. Muscles grew and bones broke. It hurt so bad that tears blurred the green into a watery wetness. The last thought I had before the world went away was that of the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen in my life.
Sebastian.
The Hulk ripped open into the world as he let out a painful roar into the air. Puny Banner faded into the dark and he pushed him all the way down until he was gone. Pushing up off the ground, his teeth clenched as his anger soared, he glared at the glowing blue man in all white who hurt Banner so badly, broke him so completely, that he was gone into his depths.
The man seemed to be levitating in thin air. Easier of Hulk to grab and smash! Hulk pounded the ground and then darted towards the glow of light, ready to swat it like an insect when it moved. It blipped out of sight, leaving only a shadow behind that he swung into only to hit air. He roared in annoyance at missing his target as he turned around to see only the open field of ground and snow and dead trees in the distance.
A shadow to his left, then his right, before he was shocked once again and lifted up into the air and slammed back down into the ground with such force it caused a dent. Hulk's head was swimming in pain and anger. The blue man in white was in his vision, hovering above him, and he gritted out, "Blue fairy gonna regret making Hulk mad."
The blue fairy man blipped and appeared right in front of his face, so close he could see the white of his eyes. Placing his hands on either side of his head, he made Hulk's head explode in pain as another shock radiated into his brain and down his body.
In his thoughts, Hulk heard the words of the blue fairy, "Isn't it easier to let me take control?"
Hulk tried to resist but the world was growing distant. His body was shrinking as it seemed his anger, his pulsing heart and green blood that radiated great power and strength throughout his body, was being taken. Drained as if a wound had been ripped into his mind, blood and thoughts pouring out, while his life faded away into the snow under him.
Everything fucking hurt. My body, my mind, and my lungs. I couldn't breathe. Breathing was no longer something I could do for myself. My lungs were no longer my lungs. My heart was no longer beating in time with my life's rhythm. I was there, floating in a dark void of existence but the existence wasn't mine. Lost in the dark. Chained and shackled and absolutely defeated. I stayed buried as I felt my body moving.
"You are no longer alone. I am here with you. We will become many of one."
Time seemed non-existent. There were thoughts in the void and in those moments, it seemed like everything that I'd once been was being reworked inside my mind. Everything logically was being reconfigured. My thoughts were their thoughts. My body was their body. My life; their life. I was no longer one but one who was many, just as he told me I would. And I let it happen. A part of me tried to fight back, but then the comfort of the voice overtook everything, and I was lost to it. In that chorus of his voice, I found peace. The voice was so familiar. I loved that voice. I'd missed it so much.
A light started to glow in the dark void and in the glow, I saw images of a past life. It was Banner's life, brief moments in my existence flashed before me. Moments of a life I once valued with concepts that no longer seemed to matter like compassion, individuality, shame, hurt, heartbreak, fears of inadequacy, and the sense of loneliness. Worst of all, what left my heart was love. All human conditions that were now inconsequential.
In the glow of white I saw huddled in a closed closet a frightened boy with tears streaming down his face. A young Banner traumatized by his abusive, murderous father. A flash to another time and place of a young boy screaming out his despair as his mother laid motionless on the ground as blood poured out of her delicate broken skull. Banner, older, kicking his murderous father as the rain poured down, watched as he slipped backwards and hit his head against the gravestone. A laughter filled my head. I had laughed as I watched my father's delicate head break open and blood ran a stream of red into the ground where my mother had been buried.
Banner, older, kissing Sebastian as they held onto one another in a warm room full of joy and life. Banner, alone, sitting cold and stoic inside of a hospital room as Sebastain slipped into a coma. Never to awaken. Banner, shouldering his bag to depart for Greenland as Harlem burned in the distance. Banner, older, laughing as his eyes glowed green before the Hulk destroyed a truck load of would-be terrorists in India. Banner standing outside a room watching a mother cry as a little boy stood at a distance. Banner, during the late hours, as he walked the empty streets as he listened to the rhythms and pulses of the city. Banner, alone, sitting and staring out the window of a battered and crumbling office building in Prague as the rain fell outside. Banner, alone, reading a book among the trees of a forest. Banner, alone, in his bedroom inside the base-cave in the Catskills. Banner, surrounded by others but alone, on the bridge of the Helicarrier, in a tower, at a restaurant, in a bar, on the streets, and in the world.
I had long since believed that what made me able to exist was because I was alone in the world. It made it so much easier to make the tough decisions, to make the hard calls, and to keep myself intact if it all came crashing down. The concept of "alone" was more than how I chose to live but it had become my way of life. A family, even friends, was out of my grasp due to a self-imposed isolation. Being one of one made me a better person. I couldn't hurt anyone if I was alone. And, in return, no one could ever hurt me again. It had become essential to my survival. Even when friendship or a relationship was offered, I found ways to ruin it. For Banner, to have another in his life was irrelevant.
Now, I was no longer alone. He was with me, and I was with him. It was as if all the hands of all the world grabbed onto me like a lifeline that kept me from falling hard and fast into a dark abyss. Without him, I would be lost. Without him, a piece of me would be gone forever. His hands were my hands and we held onto one another.
He was one of many; there was no one of one anymore. We were of one mind. We were of one body and of one existence. We were essential together. The life that was once Banner, quiet and alone, was no longer.
"We will have a new life," the voice spoke to him. "One full of only our voices and our existence. Never alone. Never quiet. Never again…raging. It can be calm. We can make it calm. All you have to do is give me control."
Through the voice and a chorus of thoughts, another "Him" presented itself. He was quieter but as assertive as any other. The thoughts of the young boy invaded his mind. He had been an only child, and he too had been alone. Scared and puny. Full of guilt and rage. A child, who out of terror and loneliness, found a great comfort in the thoughts of another. Had the other been real, or imaginary, I didn't know. I couldn't remember. All I knew was that whenever I looked into a mirror, I heard his voice in my head. It wasn't coming from the light, but the dark. It was raging up out of the pit of despair that had engulfed the black void.
Taking the raging thoughts into my head, I felt a resistance. He was afraid of the light. Afraid of what he had been. Afraid of me. Of us. Afraid of Human.
Was I still human?
"Bruce."
Turning to look at the one who'd spoken my name, I smiled. It was Sebastian. He was wearing all white, glowing in the light. Reaching out for him, I pulled him into my body and kissed him so hard it hurt. I missed him so much.
Pulling away, he asked, "Do you give yourself to me?" Do I give myself? Could I? "Let me help you," he said as his thumb skimmed over my right eyelid before saying, "see things differently."
Even though all my feelings had been numbed, my mind had been heightened as if a hole to the very fabric of life was ripped open inside my mind. They were so much more. I was so much more. So much knowledge entered my head that seemed to span over all of space and time. Planets I'd never visited were so clear in his mind. Languages I'd never heard were understood and recognized as if it were my native tongue. Through it all there was one goal. All that laid before me was what needed to be done. Only the destruction mattered. Everything else was irrelevant. Human emotion, human imperfections, were all gone as everything locked into place. They would annihilate everything, everyone, to gain peace.
Then…He would come. Then once He was done, only then could a King reign.
I understood why Banner had been selected, why they wanted me to join them. They needed an arbitrator along with a King. The human Banner was a man of great control, of logic, of options and ideas. Utilizing all of what he contained and obtained, he too, had aspired toward one thing: perfection. However, it was a concept I could never obtain despite all my control and logic. I had flaws. The human Banner was angry. Bitter and vindictive. He was a man who raged. He welcomed it like he welcomed the air he breathed.
He only needed a reason.
The Hulk wanted a reason. He seethed in anger and pain. Hulk was immoral, indestructible, and he would reign over it all. Reign as a King. The strongest one there was, not just on Earth, but beyond. They wanted to conquer planets. They needed Hulk to do it.
What was offered by the voice of Sebastian was what the human Banner could never reach, never grasp, no matter how long he struggled and strived to reach it. And how I had struggled because of human fallacy. Humans were imperfect by nature. Being Hulk, half-human and half-monster, seemed to release the bondage of my humanity and individuality, so that I could obtain perfection through unity with another. That was the goal of A.I.M. And now, I know them better than I know myself. It was as if I'd been with them my entire life.
Where there had once been voids and emptiness, there was now purpose as the emptiness was filled with their presence. And I became one—No, I was more than one of many.
I was all.
We were—
"You understand now, don't you?" Sebastian's voice filled my head.
"Yes," I said in a near whisper as it all became so clear. Why would anyone want to fight against this? "I see now." In my mind, I felt him smile.
Then he was gone, and I felt his loss deeply. How could that be? I wasn't supposed to feel anything anymore.
"You will always feel me, Bruce," Sebastian's voice echoed through my mind.
He was still there, and the relief that he would always be there, in the quiet, in the light, settled the roaring resistance in the dark. The dark void faded along with the light as I once again saw the sky, and day had given way to night, and I could see the stars. The ground was cold and wet under my body from the melted snow. Then, as if struck with a shock of clarity, I understood everything.
There were five types of kinetic energy: radiant, thermal, sound, electrical, and mechanical. Sebastian can move though and use all of them. That was why he was able to stop the plane. Radiant energy concerns ultraviolet light as well as gamma rays that are continually moving around in the universe. That was why Sebastian could see the universe and all the other planets. Sound…Kinetic energy through sound was why I could hear him along with the gamma radiation inside my body. He was inside of me and I heard him because he'd been moving through the vibrations of the world. Everything gives off vibrations.
Sebastian hadn't really been there at all. That was why Anton hadn't heard him in the plane. Sebastian had only been in my mind's eye. He wasn't there when he sat up and looked around the vast openness of the snow-covered field. He had to remain hidden, in the light, so that I, the Hulk, could reign.
Sebastian had to be the one to speak. Sebastian was the voice of the future. He was the voice to all the planets and all the life beyond Earth. He could manipulate everything with kinetic energy. Speak through anything, anywhere, and get inside anyone. My reason for existence became so clear. Sebastian was the arbitrator. I was the arbitrator's protector. His equal in all. Sebastian's would be King. The Hulk would reign once we laid waste to it all. Out of the ashes, a peaceful world.
"No," I said as he realized how wrong all this was. I wanted it, only because I wanted Sebastian. I didn't want death and destruction. I didn't want Hulk to be King. "Yes," another voice spoke, broken from the depths of the dark. "Hulk...destroy. Hullk reign as King."
I tried to fight it, but it was a truth I'd known for a long time. Hulk was the strongest one there was. His heart was stronger than my will. In the end, there could be only one remaining, and it wouldn't be me. The human Banner could do nothing but watch as if he were held prisoner in his own mind and body. Lines from a poem entered his mind, one by Rainer Maria Rilke called The Panther. He'd recited it once long ago, but now he fully understood it. "His gaze is from the passing of bars, so exhausted that it doesn't hold a thing anymore. For him, it's as if there were thousands of bars and behind the thousands of bars no world. The sure stride of lithe, powerful steps, that around the smallest of circles turns, is like a dance of pure energy about a center, in which a great will stands numbed."
His will was numbed just as the panther in Rilke's poem. His world now a prison in which he couldn't even move to pace around in an effort to exert his energy. It had been, instead, bottled up and buried.
"We are here with you." Sebastian's voice was so confident and pure, it enveloped me as a presence filled my heart along with my mind. "Do not be afraid. We will not let you fall. Out of the shadows…"
"Into the light," I spoke as the human Banner screamed out in anger, in resistance, inside my mind as I finally gave into the rage I felt.
Ripping once again out into the world, Hulk's eyes opened but the world around him was no longer green. It was blue, and it was as cold as the heart that pounded inside his chest.
If anyone resisted the light, Hulk would destroy them.
A.I.M. Facility
Lake Ladoga
The freezing darkness lifted as the world came back to him. He was inside a storage supply and maintenance room. As the warmth returned to his body, he took in the were various cleaning supplies, mops and brooms, and boxes stored on shelves. Anton eased around him as he went towards the door.
"How'd you do that?"
"I told you already—"
"Not transporting us," Clint said as he removed his coat and tossed it up onto a box on the top shelf so that it'd be out of sight. "Get us to where we need to be?" Opening the bag, he removed his quiver and all its arrows. Slinging it on his back, he said, "If you've never been here before and didn't know where it was—"
Anton glanced over his shoulder at him and said, "Who said I've never been here before?"
He grabbed the bow off his belt, flicked his wrist to extend it out as he stared at the man. "You're A.I.M.?"
"I don't think so," Anton said, "but when I was last here, A.I.M had yet to exist. Back in the 80's before the fall of the USSR, this facility was used for research into nuclear power, given it being built on Lake Ladoga. Once Bruce told me what kind of facility was needed, and where, this old place was my first thought."
"It'd been a guess?"
"A lot of how I get from one place to the next is a guess. Oftentimes, with an educated one, I'm right."
"And the uneducated ones?"
"I've ended up in forests, people's apartments, in a well in the ground. I've even ended up inside a mountain once."
"How'd you get out?"
"The same way I got in." Anton tapped his head. "If I can see it, I can get myself in and out of anywhere."
"Like a ghost. You move through walls and air." Clint regarded him as he said, "That still doesn't explain how you found me."
Anton didn't seem to want to reveal that information, but then he gave a slight nod, as if coming to an understanding, before telling him, "I've been accused on more than one occasion of reading people's minds. That's how I found you. Bruce knew where you were going, so did I."
Just great, a mind reader as well as a ghost. Clint gripped his bow tight as Anton finally opened the door he'd been standing in front of and stepped out into the hallway. Not knowing what to expect, and always expecting a trap, he notched an arrow and followed him out. His boomerang arrow was still secure on his left arm, though folded along his arm so as not to restrict his movement at the elbow. He only used it when he absolutely had to as a last resort. He only had one. He didn't want to lose it.
"I do this better in the vents and rafters."
Anton glance back at him as he said, "And I do better in the shadows. It's where I can hide. We're both sitting ducks out in the open like this."
Looking up, he saw how high the ceilings were. This place reminded him of the facility on Jupiter Island in Paris. The ceilings were high with beams and pillars exposed. Very modernized with the smart glass panels as walls that could transition depending on whether the occupant wanted privacy or not. Every door had a keypad that required a card or code to enter. Open floors, exposed framing, and mezzanines overlooked every floor from the ground to the top with elevator banks in the middle.
"Think you can get me up there?"
Anton followed his eyes up the high walls to the ceiling. "I may be a ghost, but I can't fly. You'll find a way."
He saw Anton backing away into the storage room and asked, "Where're going?"
"I told you, I'm a sitting duck out there."
Clint watched as a void opened in the darkness of the storage room and Anton slipped into the dark and was gone. He flexed his jaw as he searched around and returned his arrow to the quiver as he decided he needed to do the same. Taking off down the hall, he searched for a way to get up and out of sight.
Passing office doors and rooms, and a lot of glass walls, he came upon the elevator banks. What he hadn't seen in passing were cameras. They could have been well hidden or only in places they were really needed. Either way no one was after him, yet. Gripping the railing that surrounded the elevator bank, he climbed up the side of it as he ascended toward the ceiling, passing floors as he went.
A commotion was heard on the floor above the one he was under, so he grabbed a hold of a beam that extended along the ceiling and pulled himself along it until he could get his legs wrapped up and around it. Holding himself in place under the floor above him and above the floor below him, he listened.
They were footsteps and talking. Two people were in conversation and both were women.
One of them said, "He's been holed up in the atrium and courtyard all day."
"We are to leave him alone," the other woman retorted. "There can be no interruptions."
"I wasn't planning on interrupting, Director Harrow. I was only wondering if you think he's succeeded?"
Harrow was quiet before she answered, "We'll know soon enough."
He saw the elevator go by him and then heard it come to a stop. Gripping the beam tighter, he eyed the width of the rail the car moved along and made sure to stay perfectly lined up with it so not to be exposed as the glass elevator car passed by him if it descended. A moment later, the elevator car rushed by him on its way to the bottom floor and he didn't see either woman standing by the glass wall at the rear of the car.
Once it was out of sight, he reached back around the beam and grabbed onto the exposed rail to the next floor and pulled himself up and over. He landed on the tenth floor, right next to the elevator bank, and let out a breath as he looked around. The building was pretty dark as it was getting late in the evening. He figured it was close to night shift to take over to close up, if it had a closing time. But all that mattered was that the lights on the top floors were mostly out compared to the lights on the bottom floors.
He still didn't spot a camera as he hugged the walls and kept his eyes out for a floor map or building map. Something to tell him where he was and where he was going. If this was a SHIELD mission, he would have downloaded the schematics of the building onto a little gadget thing that he would keep on his wrist, much like a watch, and when a button was pressed the map of the building would come up like a hologram and he could twist it around and zoom in and out as he—
He heard a noise. Plastering himself up against the side of a wall in the dark corner of the hallway behind a potted plant, he held his breath and listened.
It was a voice, and it was echoing down the corridor. Leaving the safety of the dark corner, he made his way towards the voice. At the end of the corridor, he saw an opening out into a glass structure. The atrium. Hadn't one of the women said that was where "he" was located. He was in the atrium and courtyard.
Getting to the opening, he looked around the vast open glass structure, saw the night sky over Russia, and then his eyes traveled down into the courtyard. Stone paths were made into straight lines between flowers, trees, and hedges. It was a garden with stone paths making straight lines among the flowers and trees, the hedges, benches and sculptures. He'd seen something like it once when he visited the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. He'd gone to pay his respects to a fallen hero he'd served with in the Army.
Walking the paths of the garden was a man in white. He wore a white shirt and pants that flowed off him like they were draped over his body. His hands were behind his back and his head was down and he was talking. His soft voice echoed all the way up to the tenth floor.
"You're too late, Agent Barton."
Clint stilled as he heard his name spoken into the air. He hit a few buttons on his bow as he grabbed an arrow out of his quiver. "Too late for what?" he spoke down into the open-air courtyard.
The man in white turned and stared up at him from the ground below. Even ten floors up he could see the glowing blue of his irises. He was tall, dark hair, and the blues of his eyes radiated right into his as he said, "To stop me, this…Us."
"Yeah, well, we'll see." He notched the arrow, took aim, and shot it right towards his head.
The arrow spun on a direct course to its target and then stopped. Clint nearly gapped as he watched as it was suspended in air right in front of the man's face. He was like Neo in the Matrix, stopping bullets. but he bet he couldn't stop a bomb. Smirking, he pressed a button on the bow and the tip of the arrow exploded into the man's eyes, blinding him, as he quickly grabbed another arrow and shot it up and out of the open glass ceiling and into the night sky.
Pulling another arrow, he locked it onto a rafter across the room and shot it. The grappler hook caught on the beam as he jumped up and over the railing and swung down and across the room towards the opposite glass wall. Pulling his gun, he shot out a window second before he was swinging through it and out into the night air and then let go.
Landing on his feet, he ducked and rolled into the dark hedges surrounding the atrium. The building was too open with nowhere to hide, but out there, in the night, he had a chance. There was a big ass lake to his right and fields and trees to his left and back.
In front of him were the glass windows of the atrium and he saw the man in white walking towards the glass. His eyes were no longer glowing blue as he searched the night from the broken window. "He's coming," he spoke to him before turning away.
Wondering what that meant, he let out a breath and started towards the back of the building when, in the distance, he heard a roar.
20 kilometers outside of St. Petersburg
Destroy. That word radiated in his head. To destroy means to put an end to its existence by damaging or attacking it; to ruin someone emotionally and/or spiritually; or, to utterly defeat someone. In his mind, he felt absolutely destroyed and he wanted to return the favor. He wanted to destroy all those humans who destroyed him without mercy. One after another, after another, and another, he wanted to rip them all apart. Destroyed all but one. In the end, there could be only one.
Every human he came across in route to the one, he destroyed. Towns and villages were ravaged and set afire. Most, if not all the humans in them destroyed. The human Banner was in shock. Cold and empty within the quiet of his head. Their hope, and any chance they had at maintaining their lives was destroyed. And he was their destroyer. They would truly understand after this defeat that he would destroy them all if they didn't kneel to the might of the strongest one there was. The survivors who evacuated the towns would be stripped of everything that made them human. Remade, he thought, into his image. Of gods and monsters, he was both.
He would destroy them in every way possible in order to rebuild them into one. Their minds would become his mind. His will would become theirs. And he, Sebastain, would lead them to perfection in service to their King. Hulk.
He pounded his chest and let out a deep roar into the night.
"I will find a way," Banner's voice filled his head, latched onto his mind as he stared out at the houses on fire. He, the puny human, did not give himself over so freely. He had been struggling, fighting and resisting, as he was biding his time. Hulk realized then that the voice wasn't solely in his mind but speaking from his lips. As if speaking to one another, they both said, "I will kill you—"
"This is a complication." Sebastian's voice was back. He felt his fingers on his neck, his breath on his ear and just like that, he came to an all stop. Fear sparked in his chest, rage filled his mind, as he huffed out into the cold night air.
The blue fairy appeared in front of him as his fingers lingered on the back of his neck. His disappointment crushed into his soul. Hulk lowered his head in shame.
"This is hard for Bruce. I understand. He hasn't been shown the full extent of what we offer. Until he gives himself to me completely and freely, this will have to wait," he said. "He can prove his worth another way."
In his mind, he heard the command. Hulk complied. Without thinking, he changed course and headed away from the city of St. Petersburg as he closed in on the beacon of the one person that he had to protect. In the night sky he saw an explosion of red light. It was another beacon, but it wasn't for him.
Roaring out his anger, he launched himself up into the air, grabbed the top of a tree and sprung further up into the sky as he shortened the distance between him and Lake Ladoga in mere minutes.
TBC…