Avengers Generations

Chapter 16

Bruce sat next to the bed with a hand on Anjali's shoulder as she breathed and groaned. He had delivered a hundred babies before, but this was different - this was his own child.

"Push, Angel." He said calmly in Hindi to his wife "You can do it."

Anjali shook her head vigorously, throwing drops of sweat in all directions. Her hair was damp and plastered to her head and shoulders, and her face was screwed in pain. "Nahīṁ!" She cried "I can't!"

"Everything will be okay. You can do this!" Her husband said, trying to keep her going. She was the only one in his life who knew about the Other Guy... and accepted it. She was always there for him, always supportive and caring... Now she was bringing his child into the world - and Bruce was overjoyed and terrified at the same time.

"It burns!" She screamed "Oh, it's like fire!" Her cries flew through the small wooden house and out into the streets of the Indian slums.

"That's good!" Bruce said comfortingly "The child's coming!" He positioned his hand to catch the baby's head as it pushed out, but it didn't come. "Um..." He said, furrowing his brow.

Anjali screamed a sharp, piercing cry. "It's burning!" She said "It's ripping me in two!"

"It's alright... You're fine..." Bruce said, but he wasn't so sure... Things began to go very wrong, and he pulled his glasses off in disbelief as Anjali's torso grew larger as she screamed. Skin tore, blood flowed... and his Angel screamed no more.

There, within the shredded body of the woman he loved, lay a baby boy - but he wasn't like any boy Bruce had ever seen before. He was so strong and so muscular, it was unreal... And he was - green.

Bruce felt the pain of loosing his wife tear through his body like his son had torn through his mother. Dr. Banner felt his anger expanding and pulsing through his veins as the Other Guy took over their body.

"Gah!" Bruce shouted, jolting out of his sleep. He searched the floor next to the worn blankets that made up his sleeping area, and with trembling hands found the pills he had been looking for. He quickly swallowed a few, and relaxed.

That dream - the re-occurring memory of William's birth - was the most dangerous thing in India. Bruce was always afraid of waking up as the Other Guy one morning... he could change while sleeping and destroy everything within miles- the dream was painful enough.

He hadn't been the best father after William had been born - he sort of tried to kill him. That's why they had 'lived' in the Himalayas for most of the boy's life... The Other Guy had removed the violence from India, and had taken it to Nepal. Banner wasn't sure if that had saved anyone's life... he and William had killed so many people...

Bruce rubbed his eyes, trying to forget the dream - but he couldn't. The memory of Anjali's death was so deeply engraved on his mind that he would never be able to forget it - the screaming, the blood... And then William, looking up at him with his angry green eyes... It hadn't been the boy's fault though, Bruce knew it was his own genetics that had killed his wife - his own damned experiment - that had caused his son so much pain. And now, William had been taken by S.H.I.E.L.D., and the terrible dreams had gotten worse.

Bruce stood up, no longer willing to risk sleep, he did the most relaxing thing he knew - research. He made himself a cup of chai - though he hadn't been able to perfect it like his old housekeeper had - ducked into his curtained-off laboratory, and turned on his computers. The equipment buzzed softly as the dark screens flickered to life, feeding the scientist information with the green numbers and letters.

Bruce took a sip of his drink and clicked his fingers along the keyboard as he stood, leaning down to see the screen, drowning his thoughts in new information.

"That's not right..." He said after a while, adjusting his glasses as he peered at the screen. He smacked the computer tower a few times to be sure it was working correctly before pulling out a journal and scrawling information in it. There had been a huge level of disturbance at 45.5200° N, 122.6819° W... Banner pulled a worn atlas off the shelf and flipped through it quickly. "Portland..."

This disturbance wasn't showing the same characteristics as a nuclear explosion or an average natural disaster... On the scanners it looked more like a giant lightning bolt had struck the center of the city, but the chances of the freak energy hitting the dead-center of Portland were 1 in tens of thousands, especially in August during the dry season... No, this was intentional.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. will be all over this..." Bruce muttered to himself as his eyes darted from the screen to his notebook. What he didn't dare mutter out loud was that the organization would want to use William somehow - and that wouldn't work out well for them.

He sat alone in his lab for hours writing out calculations and flipping through books and old journals. He worked well past noon and on into the cool evening hours of the Indian countryside, searching down leads, eliminating options, an piecing together facts. The anomaly seemed similar to the disturbance caused by Thor other Asgardians transporting to Earth, but much bigger and more violent. Could it be a weapon from another planet?

Banner finally put down his work for a moment and looked around him, the sun had risen and set, the stars were twinkling faintly, and his cold chai sat on a shelf. He removed his glasses, rubbed his strained eyes and covered a yawn as he stood and quietly left his laboratory. He walked toward his bed, and looked down at the tattered sheets on the dirt floor with a sense of fear. He was afraid he would have the dream again... Ever since William had left they had just become worse and worse - and more and more dangerous.

His thoughts flickered back and forth- Anjali's screams became William's voice... His newborn's angry eyes became the sorrowful eyes of his son as he left... And the fear of loosing his wife changed into the fear of loosing the only family he had left.

Bruce looked around him - unsure of what to do. He took a deep breath - as well as a backpack full of food, equipment, and notebooks - and wheeled William's bicycle out onto the dark, dirt road. He looked back at his safe, remote home once before pedaling off into the night.

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Tony'a got swagger,

Phil's oh-so-dapper

Thor is just dreamy,

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